LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


RETROSPECTIONS  OF 
AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 


A  D.  1817 


John  Bigelow 


A.T).  1907 


RETROSPECTIONS  OF 
AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 


BY 

JOHN  BIGELOW 


VOLUME  I 
1817—1863 


NEW  YORK 

THE  BAKER  &  TAYLOR  CO. 
1909 


Copyright,  1909,  by 
THE  BAKER  &  TAYLOR  Co. 


TO 
JANE  POULTNEY  BIGELOW 

MY  WIFE   AND 

MOTHEE   OF   MY   CHILDKEN 

THESE   VOLUMES   AEE   GKATEFULLY 

DEDICATED 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

i  JUVENILIA,  1817-1830 3 

ii  ACADEMIC  AND  COLLEGIATE  LIFE,  1830-1835    ....  26 

in  LAW  STUDENT  AND  LAWYER,  1835-1848 37 

iv  EXCHANGE  THE  BAR  FOR  THE  PRESS 73 

v  THE  FIRST  TRIUMPH  OF  THE  PARTISANS  OF  FREE  SOIL, 

FREE  LABOR,  AND  FREE  MEN 140 

vi  EXCURSION  TO  HAYTI  AND  ST.  THOMAS,  1853-1854    .     .  146 

vii  INTENSIVE  FERMENTATION  OF  SECTIONAL  TROUBLE  AT 

WASHINGTON 160 

vin  FIRST  VISIT  TO  EUROPE,  1858-1860 181 

ix  REBELLION  INITIATED 295 

;  x  THE  CRISIS  OF  POPULAR  SOVEREIGNTY 327 

xi  CONSUL  AT  PARIS,  1861-1864 371 

xii  OPEEATIONS  OF  THE  CONFEDEKACY  IN  FKANCE    ....  482 

xin  THE  CRISIS  OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  INSURRECTION 

FORESHADOWED 527 

xiv  ENGLAND'S  OPPORTUNITY? 544 

xv  OPERATIONS  OF  THE  CONFEDERATES  IN  EUROPE  .  .  588 


vii 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

John  Bigelow,  A.D.  1817,  A.D.  1907 Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGK 

John  Bigelow,  A.D.  1838 36 

William  Cullen  Bryant 72 

Charles  0 'Conor 84 

Charles  Sumner,  Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow 112 

Martin  Van  Buren 116 

Charles  Sumner 158 

Beranger 214 

John  Bright,  Richard  Cobden,  Michel  Chevalier 244 

Victoria,  Queen  and  Empress 266 

William  Ewart  Gladstone 272 

William  Makepeace  Thackeray 278 

Samuel  Jones  Tilden 290 

Sir  William  H.  Russell 342 

Abraham  Lincoln 366 

General  Winfield  Scott  .  388 


PRELUDE 

THE  title  of  the  work  here  submitted  to  the  public  has  seemed 
to  my  publishers  to  require  some  explanation.  I  prefer  to  ex 
plain  rather  than  to  change  it. 

I  could  not  dignify  it  with  the  title  of  Reminiscences.  That 
would  be  paying  quite  too  great  a  compliment  to  the  memory 
of  any  man  of  my  age,  however  unimpeachable  his  character. 

Memoirs  and  Memorabilia  for  the  same  reason  would  be  a 
scarcely  less  presuming  title.  I  have  attempted  to  give  only 
what  navigators  would  term  the  headlands  of  what  in  our  day 
seems  to  be  regarded  as  an  unusually  protracted  life.  For 
those  headlands  I  am  prepared  to  give  more  or  less  contem 
poraneous  vouchers.  They  are  therefore  strictly  retrospec 
tions  and  in  no  proper  sense  recollections,  though  calculated 
naturally  to  awaken  memories  confirming  them. 

The  nearest  to  any  qualification  of  these  statements  that  I 
feel  called  upon  to  make  will  be  found  in  the  first  few  pages 
devoted  to  my  youth,  and  before  I  had  entered  into  formal 
relations  of  any  kind  with  the  world  as  a  publicist. 

I  begin 

My  story  early — not  misled,  I  trust, 
By  an  infirmity  of  love  for  days 
Disowned  by  memory,  ere  the  breath  of  spring 
Planting  my  snowdrops  among  winter  snows. 

Happily  these  Juvenilia  have  been  guarded  by  my  memory 
more  faithfully  than  many  of  my  later  experiences  of  life. 
Were  it  otherwise,  neither  the  events  themselves  nor  the 
limited  space  they  occupy  can  greatly  concern  the  reader.  Yet 
they  also  deserve  a  brief  explanation. 

I  may  presume  that  those  of  my  readers  who  are  fortunate 

xi 


xii  PRELUDE 

enough  to  be  grandfathers  are  familiar  with  the  clamor  apt  to 
assail  them  at  their  firesides  on  the  arrival  of  what  Longfellow 
so  happily  baptized  as  ' l  The  Children 's  Hour. ' ' 

The  Juvenilia  consist  entirely  of  stories  told  by  me  in  re 
sponse  to  such  appeals.  One  of  my  daughters  who  heard  them 
took  the  trouble  to  write  them  down  for  the  future  edification 
of  her  own  child,  one  of  those  "children's  children"  who,  ac 
cording  to  Solomon, ' t  are  the  crown  of  old  age. ' '  When  I  con 
templated  printing  a  compilation  I  had  then  long  been  working 
upon  and  which  was  projected  to  cover  only  the  period  of  my 
official  service  in  France  from  1861  to  1866,  inclusive,  my  daugh 
ter  told  me  that  my  Juvenilia  ought  to  precede  such  record.  I 
was  at  first  quite  indisposed  to  seriously  consider  her  sugges 
tion,  being  too  well  aware  that  a  daughter's  judgment  of  a  par 
ent's  career  was  not  a  measure  by  which  the  interest  of  the 
public  in  it  could  be  safely  estimated.  I  knew  also  that  what  a 
boy  may  do  in  his  teens  may  be  made  sometimes  available  in 
fiction  or  poetry,  but  is  rarely  of  much  if  of  any  value  for  his 
torical  purposes.  Besides,  I  shrank  from  any  attempt  to 
appraise  the  historic  value  of  my  own  schoolboy  days. 

These  reasons,  however,  did  not  weigh  with  her  as  I  had 
thought  they  would,  and  much  experience  has  taught  me  that 
a  woman's  instincts  are  not  unfrequently  more  trustworthy 
than  the  wisest  man's  reasons.  The  contrast  between  the  con 
ditions  of  American  life  now  and  those  of  nearly  a  century 
ago,  she  naturally  appreciated  more  sensibly  than  I  did.  It 
certainly  proved  to  her,  and  therefore  might  prove  to  her  own 
and  future  generations,  not  only  surprising,  but  to  the  younger 
class  of  readers  as  interesting  as  any  part  of  the  story  of  my 
maturer  years. 

In  those  days  the  "gray  goose-quill"  was  the  universal  im 
plement  of  the  ready  writer.  The  pen  of  steel  or  gold  was  a 
secret  of  the  future. 

There  were  no  telegraphs  or  telephones,  defying  time  and 
space. 


PRELUDE  xiii 

Neither  steam  nor  electricity  as  a  power  had  entered  into 
successful  competition  with  the  horse  or  the  ox. 

The  oceans  as  yet  were  vexed  only  by  the  same  capricious 
elemental  and  mechanical  forces  as  those  which  wrecked  St. 
Paul  some  nineteen  centuries  before  on  the  island  of  Melita. 

We  are  already  beginning  to  navigate  the  air,  and  with 
greater  speed  than  anything  but  birds  had  then  ever  attained 
in  locomotion  either  by  land  or  water. 

Our  houses  were  lighted  at  night  only  by  tallow  dips. 

The  most  powerful  explosives  then  known,  for  purposes  of 
either  war  or  peace,  would  prove  about  as  valueless  for  the 
protection  of  a  city  or  for  resisting  a  siege  at  the  present  day 
as  a  pair  of  spectacles. 

Were  our  commercial  metropolis  by  a  sudden  dispensation 
of  Providence  deprived  of  the  resources  with  which  science 
and  the  industrial  arts  have  provided  it  since  John  Quincy 
Adams  became  President  of  the  United  States,  the  hundreds  of 
thousands  who  now  flock  thither  every  morning  from  its  terri 
torial  circuit  of  forty  or  fifty  miles  would  be  obliged  to  con 
sume  two  days  in  a  journey  which  now  occupies  habitually  less 
than  as  many  hours.  As  its  population  never  has  a  supply  of 
provisions  on  Manhattan  Island  for  more  than  three  days, 
only  those  who  could  get  on  foot  to  some  source  of  supply  else 
where  could  escape  starvation,  inasmuch  as  all  the  available 
means  for  the  transportation  of  food  would  not  suffice  for  the 
population  of  the  Waldorf-Astoria  Hotel  alone  for  a  single 
week,  if  for  a  single  day.  Those  who  failed  to  make  a  timely 
escape  would  have  neither  water  to  drink  nor  fire  to  cook  with  ; 
the  total  of  the  only  fuel  then  used  or  known  in  the  city  would 
not  suffice  to  cook  a  breakfast  for  its  inhabitants.  Soon  after 
sunset  the  city  would  be  in  total  darkness,  except  in  the  rare 
cases  where  an  old  flint-lock  musket  had  chanced  to  have  sur 
vived  its  usefulness  as  a  weapon  to  anticipate  the  arrival  of 
sulphuretted  matches.  Nothing  but  provisions  would  have 
any  value,  and  most  edibles  would  be  worthless  for  want  of 


xiv  PRELUDE 

fire  and  water  to  prepare  them.  No  newspaper  could  appear 
to  tell  what  had  happened  or  how  to  reorganize  life  upon  the 
new  conditions,  so  completely  has  the  machinery  for  printing 
and  journalism  changed  in  the  last  threescore  years  and  ten. 

To  crown  all,  one  at  least  of  our  compatriots  is  believed  to 
have  achieved  the  unrivalled  distinction  of  being  the  first 
human  being  who,  so  far  as  is  known,  has  ever  visited  the 
Northern  Pole  of  our  planet. 

These  facts  naturally  awaken,  as  they  should,  in  the  heart  of 
every  loyal  patriot  the  question  whether  the  base-line  which 
measures  the  distance  between  our  country  when  it  first  came 
within  my  field  of  vision,  and  its  condition  as  we  find  it  to-day, 
indicates  that  we  are  as  a  nation  advancing  into  Canaan  or 
retrograding  into  Egypt.  Do  the  searchings  of  the  national 
heart  betray  the  greater  solicitude  about  the  deliverances  from 
Mount  Gerizim  or  those  from  Mount  Ebal?  God  only  knows, 
but  He  lets  us  hope. 

The  volumes  of  these  Eetrospections  now  in  press  will  em 
brace  the  period  from  1817  to  1867 — the  close  of  my  mission  to 
France  and  the  termination  of  our  discontents  with  her  Im 
perial  Government,  which  were  among  the  unhappy  sequelae 
of  our  domestic  troubles  with  slavery. 

Should  I  not  be  spared  the  strength  to  continue  these  Eetro 
spections  through  such  subsequent  portions  of  my  life  as  it 
has  pleased  the  Master  thus  far  to  indulge  me,  I  feel  reason 
ably  confident  of  leaving  the  documentary  materials  for  them 
in  such  a  condition  that  they  can  be  delivered  to  the  public 
when,  if  ever,  they  may  be  called  for. 


BETKOSPECTIONS  OF 
AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 


RETROSPECTIONS  OF 
AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 


JUVENILIA 
1817-1830 

IN  my  father's  copy  of  Scott's  Family  Bible  now  in  my 
possession,  I  find  the  following  records  in  his  handwrit 
ing  on  the  blank  pages  reserved  in  it  for  the  more  vital 
incidents  of  family  histories : 

Asa  Bigelow  was  born  Maryborough  Connecticut  January  18"  1779 
and  Lucy  Isham  was  born  in  Colchester  Connecticut  September  22 
1780  and  married  February  18,  1802  by  the  Revd  Salmon  Cone  of 
Colchester. 

Under  the  Eubric  of  Births  will  be  found  the  record  by  the 
same  hand  of  the  very  first  event  of  my  life  in  a  world  in 
which,  at  the  time  of  this  writing,  I  have  spent  over  ninety-one 
years : 

John  Bigelow,  Bristol1  New  York 
November  25  1817. 

The  copy  of  Scott's  Family  Bible  from  which  these  entries 
are  taken  was  "Woodward's  Second  American,  from  the  Sec 
ond  London  Edition,  improved  and  enlarged.  Philadelphia, 
1811." 

1  This  name  was  subsequently  changed  to  Maiden,  that  of  Bristol  having  been 
appropriated  by  too  many  other  places  to  entitle  it  to  a  post-office.  My  father 
was  a  successful  petitioner  for  the  change  on  the  condition  of  sending  the  Post 
master-General  a  name  free  from  that  objection. 

3 


4  EETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

This  Bible  must  have  been  acquired  at  least  nine  years  after 
the  marriage  of  my  parents  and  after  the  birth  of  my  oldest 
sister  and  oldest  brother.  It  is  a  bulky  quarto  in  five  volumes, 
distinguished  by  the  absence  of  any  pagination  except  of  the 
prefatory  matter  of  the  commentator,  xvi  pages.  It  was  the 
only  Bible  that  I  ever  saw  my  parents  use  in  our  family  devo 
tions  or  at  other  times  until  they  had  reached  an  age  which 
made  its  weight  too  great  a  burden,  when  it  was  replaced  by 
one  of  the  New  York  Bible  Society  publications,  "  without  note 
or  comment. ' '  The  Commentary  of  Dr.  Scott  contributed  con 
siderably  more  than  half  to  the  avoirdupois  of  his  five  bulky 
volumes.  I  remember  being  frequently  called  upon  to  read 
from  it  to  my  mother  in  my  early  life,  when  I  was  obliged  to 
divide  the  support  of  it  with  a  chair  or  a  table.  Though  it 
bears  the  usual  marks  of  age  and  the  unusual  marks  of  faith 
ful  usage,  and  though  the  faithful  Rector  of  Aston  Sanford's 
commentaries  have  suffered  as  much  in  popular  estimation  as 
my  volumes  in  which  they  were  recorded,  still  by  their  associa 
tions  they  remain  to  me  the  most  precious  book  in  my  library. 

The  next  succeeding  event  of  my  life  of  which  I  have  any 
knowledge  was  when  I  first ' '  found  my  legs. ' '  I  strolled  away 
from  home  to  a  house  my  father  was  then  building,  and  which 
subsequently  became  my  property,  in  the  northern  part  of  our 
village.  I  don't  know  how  I  found  my  way  to  the  new  house, 
which  was  about  three-quarters  of  a  mile  distant,  as  I  had 
never  been  there  and  of  course  was  not  accompanied  by  any 
one.  I  could  have  been  hardly  two  years  old.  My  sister 
tracked  me  and  brought  me  home.  I  only  learned  this  ad 
venture  from  her,  for  I  was  quite  too  young  to  have  any 
recollection  of  it. 

Not  long  after  and  while  still  too  young  to  remember  the 
fact,  I  made  another  effort  to  gratify  my  curiosity,  equally  to 
the  terror  of  the  household.  My  mother  missed  me  one  day 
and  not  finding  me  after  a  search  in  my  customary  repairs, 
sounded  an  alarm  through  the  village  and  sent  to  my  father's 
wharf  and  store  for  my  eldest  brother  to  help  look  me  up. 
After  a  couple  of  hours  of  considerable  anxiety,  none  the  less 
serious  because  our  homestead  property  ran  down  to  the  river, 
where  all  little  children  have  a  propensity  to  amuse  them 
selves  when  they  have  an  opportunity,  my  brother  at  last  dis 
covered  me,  laid  away  peacefully  on  some  of  the  projecting 


JUVENILIA  5 

boards  of  an  enormous  pile  of  lumber  twenty  feet  high  or 
more,  in  the  lumber  yard  in  the  rear  of  the  store.  When  the 
lumber  was  piled,  boards  had  been  projected,  as  is  the  custom, 
a  couple  of  feet  apart  all  the  way  up,  to  serve  as  steps  for  men 
to  get  to  the  top  whenever  any  of  the  boards  were  wanted  for 
use  or  sale.  My  brother  found  me  lying  stretched  out  fast 
asleep  on  one  of  these  projecting  steps,  some  fifteen  feet  from 
the  ground,  where  I  had  evidently  stopped  to  rest  a  little  on 
my  way  presumably  to  the  summit. 

When  I  became  able  to  read  Horace  with  pleasure,  this  story 
became  indelibly  associated  in  my  mind,  and  very  naturally— 
if  I  may  compare  great  things  with  small— with  the  account 
which  Horace  gives  of  losing  his  way  when  a  child  upon  Mons 
Voltur,  and  being  found  there  asleep  under  a  cover  of  laurel 
and  myrtle  wreaths  which  the  wood  pigeons  had  spread  to 
shield  this  favorite  of  the  gods  from  snakes  and  predatory 
animals. 

When  I  was  between  five  and  six  years  of  age  one  of  my 
brothers  wanted  to  take  me  with  him  to  school— he  was  about 
two  years  my  senior.  I  was  accordingly  properly  equipped, 
and  off  we  trotted  to  the  school-house,  about  three-fourths  of  a 
mile  distant.  It  was  a  little,  plain  wooden  house,  consisting  of 
a  single  room  and  a  little  hall  where  we  hung  our  hats  and 
coats.  As  nearly  as  I  can  recollect,  that  term  of  my  academic 
education  lasted  only  one  day.  The  only  incident  of  my  ex 
perience  which  I  can  recall  was  that  the  teacher,  a  somewhat 
austere  gentleman,  opened  the  school  exercises  with  reading  a 
chapter  in  the  Bible,  and  then  fell  upon  his  knees— in  which 
the  rest  of  the  school  followed  his  example— to  pray.  As  this 
was  a  ceremonial  the  manner  of  which  in  some  way  or  other 
struck  me  as  unusual,  I  remember  feeling  the  impulse,  alinost 
uncontrollable,  to  rise  and  say  to  the  teacher  that  I  did  n't 
know  how  to  pray  that  way.  Happily  it  was  soon  apparent 
that  nothing  especial  was  required  from  the  pupils  on  the 
occasion  but  to  get  on  their  knees.  I  was  prudent  enough  to 
hold  my  tongue,  though  I  kept  my  seat. 

Soon  after  this  adventure,  my  father  was  persuaded  by  an 
old  friend,  a  physician  who  resided  at  Sharon  in  Connecticut, 
to  send  my  brother  David  and  myself  to  a  school,  which  the 
physician  represented  as  of  a  very  superior  grade  and  char 
acter,  then  flourishing  in  that  place.  My  father's  head  clerk 


6  RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

was  charged  to  take  us  across  the  country  in  our  carriage,  and 
deliver  us  into  the  charge  of  a  Dr.  Rockwell,  one  of  the  lead 
ing  citizens  of  the  place  and  a  leading  deacon  of  the  Pres 
byterian  Church  of  that  village. 

The  day  following  our  arrival,  we  found  our  way  to  the 
school-house.  It  was  kept  by  a  man  of  the  name  of  Close.  The 
pupils  were  all  many  years  older  than  myself  or  my  brother, 
and  there  was  no  class  in  the  school  for  children  of  my  age.  The 
teacher  asked  me  a  few  questions  on  the  day  of  my  arrival, 
and  soon  ascertained  so  completely  the  extent  of  my  ignorance 
that  he  never  meddled  with  me  again  during  the  term.  I  was 
indebted  to  this  excursion  for  an  opportunity  of  learning  how 
to  swim,  which  I  might  not  have  had  at  home,  as  my  father 
seemed  from  my  then  point  of  view  to  be  under  the  impression 
that  the  only  purpose  of  the  Hudson  Eiver  was  to  float  his 
sloops,  and  drown  imprudent  little  boys  who  went  to  bathe 
in  it. 

I  do  not  remember  to  have  made  any  progress  at  this  school 
in  any  department  of  literature  or  art  that  was  taught  in  it, 
or  that  any  effort  was  made  by  anybody  to  help  me  to  make 
any.  I  do  remember,  however,  with  gratitude,  the  cherry  and 
apple  trees  which  I  visited  sedulously,  and  also  the  apple-pie, 
cheese  and  gingerbread  with  which  we  were  entertained  on 
Sundays  between  the  churches,  no  cooking  being  allowed  in  the 
family  of  our  pious  host  on  the  Sabbath  day.  I  have  never 
eaten  better  pies  nor  as  toothsome  gingerbread  since,  always 
excepting  such  as  were  made  by  my  mother. 

The  way  I  came  to  learn  there  to  swim  was  somewhat  acci 
dental.  There  was  a  creek  of  very  fine  pure  water  within 
about  three  miles  of  Sharon,  and  one  day  there  was  to  be  some 
kind  of  a  gathering  of  a  social  character  in  that  quarter,  and 
all  the  young  men  in  town  were  repairing  thither.  I  thought 
I  had  nothing  better  to  do  that  day  than  to  do  as  others  did, 
although  no  such  young  company  was  invited.  I  managed  to 
get  on  one  of  the  wagons  that  were  going,  for  I  did  n't  take  up 
much  room  in  those  days.  I  had  n't  any  idea  where  they  were 
going,  nor  have  I  now  any  idea  of  what  they  went  for;  all  I 
know  is  that  some  of  them  went  to  swim  in  this  stream. 

Of  course  I  did  not  by  my  example  rebuke  their  conduct.  On 
the  contrary,  I  was  one  of  the  first  to  get  into  the  water  with 
them.  All  I  remember  of  that  hydropathic  experience  is  that 


JUVENILIA  7 

before  I  left— we  were  in  the  water  a  couple  of  hours— I  could 
keep  afloat,  could  dive,  and  had  contracted  a  taste  for  the 
water  which  I  uniformly  indulged  thereafter  whenever  I  got 
an  opportunity;  also  that  I  came  near  being  drowned  by  a 
larger  boy  shoving  me  under  the  water  just  as  I  was  rising 
after  a  dive,  and  when  entirely  out  of  breath. 

At  the  end  of  the  term  and  on  our  return  from  Sharon  we 
crossed  the  river  at  Kingston,  and  did  not  reach  home  until 
long  after  dark,  very  tired,  hungry  and  sleepy.  Our  reception 
was  everything  that  it  should  have  been,  and  I  now  feel  again 
the  joy  that  I  experienced  when  my  mother  folded  me  in  her 
arms.  One  other  incident  on  that  occasion  impressed  itself 
upon  my  memory.  My  mother,  in  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes 
after  our  arrival,  brought  me  a  tumbler  in  which  there  was 
some  rum  and  sugar,  nutmeg  and  water,  and  recommended  me 
to  drink  it.  I  took  a  mouthful  of  it,  and  I  thought  then  to 
myself  that  I  had  never  tasted  anything  quite  so  good.  My 
mother  pressed  me  to  drink  the  rest  of  it,  but  I  said  no,  I  didn't 
want  any  more.  The  fact  was,  I  was  ashamed  to  drink  it  for 
fear  I  should  be  chaffed  about  my  taste  for  what  my  dear  old 
friend  Huntington  in  Paris  was  wont  to  describe  as  i '  arduous 
sperits."  This  was  about  the  period  of  what  might  be  called 
the  temperance  invasion  of  our  county.  Every  store  had  been 
in  the  habit  of  keeping  for  sale  rum,  gin  and  brandy.  When 
ever  a  customer  came  in  from  the  back  country  with  a  load  of 
wood,  or  bark,  or  grain,  or  any  other  commodity  to  sell,  or 
made  any  purchases,  it  had  been  throughout  the  State  and 
nation  I  suppose,  at  Bristol  at  any  rate,  the  uniform  custom  to 
offer  him  "something  to  drink, "  which  usually  consisted  of 
rum  or  gin. 

My  father  and  his  two  brothers-in-law,  Charles  and4  Giles 
Isham,  were  all  members  of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  They 
together  built  the  edifice  in  which  they  worshipped.  They  had 
long  been  sensible  that  they  were  more  or  less  accessory  to  the 
indulgence  and  cultivation  of  a  demoralizing  habit.  They  wel 
comed  the  temperance  reformer  when  he  appeared,  offered 
him  the  hospitalities  of  their  house,  and  with  all  their  respec 
tive  families  signed  the  pledge,  and  with  example  and  precept 
made  the  temperance  movement  popular  throughout  the  neigh 
borhood.  I  can  remember  when  on  my  father's  sideboard1 

lrThat  sideboard  may  now  be  seen  standinginthe  dining-room  at  "The  Squirrels." 


8  RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

always  stood  two  or  three  decanters  of  different  kinds  of  in 
toxicants,  and  the  uniform  habit  of  offering  them  to  those  who 
called,  at  least  to  business  guests. 

All  these  decanters,  at  the  time  I  am  speaking  of,  had  dis 
appeared  ;  and  by  common  concert  between  my  uncles  and  my 
father,  who  owned  the  only  stores  in  the  place,  all  intoxicating 
refreshments  were  banished  from  their  premises.  The  manner 
in  which  I  had  been  accustomed  to  hear  the  indulgence  in 
"  liquor, "  as  they  used  to  call  it,  denounced,  and  the  re 
proaches  heaped  upon  the  few  individuals  in  the  neighborhood 
who  were  not  quite  ready  to  join  the  reform  party,  had  left 
such  a  strong  impression  upon  my  youthful  mind  that  I  was 
ashamed  to  betray  the  pleasure  which  I  received  from  the 
refreshment  my  mother  gave  me,  lest  I  should  be  laughed  at  or 
twitted  for  enjoying  it  so  much. 

When  my  mother  came  to  look  over  our  clothes  and  personal 
condition  after  our  three  months'  experience  at  the  New  Eng 
land  academy,  she  very  wisely  concluded  that  we  were  both 
quite  too  young  to  leave  home,  and  we  were  again  happily  sent 
to  our  local  district  school.  Our  experience  there  was  not 
particularly  memorable  in  any  respect,  except  what  I  feel  it 
but  just  to  say,  that  it  was  the  only  school  I  ever  attended— 
and  it  was  subsequently  my  fortune,  or  misfortune,  to  be  sent 
for  two  years  to  a  high  school  in  Troy,  and  to  have  been  a 
student  in  two  colleges— that  it  was  the  only  school  in  which 
I  was  conscious  of  having  received  any  thorough  or  conscien 
tious  instruction  from  my  teachers.  If  any  of  my  academy  or 
college  mates  still  survives  I  doubt  if  one  can  be  found  to 
place  a  more  charitable  estimate  upon  those  educational  oppor 
tunities. 

By  the  time  I  was  seven  years  old,  and  even  earlier,  I  was  re 
quired  to  drive  from  six  to  eight  cows  to  pasture  after  they  had 
been  milked.  The  distance  to  their  favorite  pasture  was  about 
one  mile,  and  as  I  was  early  taught  that  cows  should  not  be 
made  to  run,  of  course  it  was  a  somewhat  leisurely  walk  that  oc 
cupied,  going  and  returning,  about  an  hour— an  hour  that  I 
think  I  may  say  was  not  altogether  wasted,  for  it  gave  me  a 
habit  of  ruminating  and  reflecting  and  observing  which 
brought  me  closer  to  nature  and  was  not  only  very  pleasant 
but  ripening.  On  my  return  I  went  to  school,  where  I  gener 
ally  managed  to  arrive  a  little  before  the  teacher  and  get  a  lit- 


JUVENILIA  9 

tie  play  with  the  other  boys.  I  always  went  home  to  dinner  at 
twelve,  and  remember  with  pleasure  stopping  in  the  berry 
season  at  the  boundary  walls  of  our  place,  which  were  overrun 
with  wild  raspberry  vines,  first  culling  a  few  stalks  of  timothy 
grass  on  which  I  would  string  as  many  raspberries  as  would 
suffice  for  my  dinner,  and  then  going  in  and  getting  my  bowl 
of  milk  and  bread  at  discretion,  eating  the  contents  pretty 
rapidly  and  hurrying  back  to  the  school-house  for  a  little  more 
play  before  school. 

One  of  what  Dr.  Franklin  calls  "  errata "  I  ought  here  to 
mention.  My  mother  insisted  upon  our  wearing  our  shoes  in 
summer  as  well  as  winter.  The  only  reason  she  had  for  her 
tenacity  on  this  point,  so  far  as  I  was  aware,  was  that  if  we 
went  barefooted  we  would  make  our  feet  sore  so  that  we 
could  n't  put  on  our  boots  on  Sunday  for  church.  As  I  was 
not  quite  as  anxious  to  go  to  church  as  to  go  barefooted  to 
school,  I  occasionally  slipped  off  my  boots  and  stockings  when 
I  got  to  the  outer  gate  and  resumed  them  on  my  return.  It 
was  not  precisely  a  nice  thing  for  a  little  boy  to  do,  but  it 
taught  me  one  thing  of  importance,  I  think,  when  I  myself 
became  a  father— never  to  impose  any  unnecessary  restric 
tions  or  commands  upon  children,  nor  to  require  of  them  any 
thing  the  reasons  for  which  they  were  not  made  to  comprehend 
and  recognize  the  propriety  of,  at  the  time. 

One  Sunday  morning  in  July  when  I  went  with  my  cows  to 
their  pasture,  it  occurred  to  me  to  go  into  the  lot  with  them, 
where  wild  strawberries  in  their  season  were  very  sure  to  be 
abundant,  large  and  sweet.  This  pasture  lot  was  known  as  the 
swamp  lot  because  part  of  it  was  swampy  and  part  of  it  was 
a  thick,  virgin  forest  through  which  ran  a  stream  which  finally 
emptied  into  the  Hudson  at  Saugerties.  This  lot  had  acquired 
a  rather  unhappy  notoriety  for  the  number  and  venomousness 
of  its  reptiles.  I  walked  some  distance  with  the  cows  into  the 
woods,  until  finally  I  remarked  an  old  stump  around  which 
were  some  large  and  tempting  clusters  of  strawberries  run 
ning  the  risk  of  going  to  waste.  I  approached  it  and  bent 
down  to  pick  some  of  the  fruit,  but  before  touching  it  I  was 
struck  with  horror  at  the  sight  of  an  enormous  copperhead 
snake  all  coiled  up  with  his  head  erected  and  perfectly  ready 
for  business.  I  presume  I  must  have  run  and  jumped  over  the 
fence  into  a  clearing,  but  so  far  as  I  can  recollect  I  flew  without 


10         KETEOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

touching  the  ground  or  the  fence  and  took  my  way  home  at  a 
livelier  gait  than  ever  before,  resolved  in  my  own  mind  that  I 
would  never  go  strawberrying  again,  in  the  swamp  at  least,  on 
Sunday  morning,  the  breaking  of  the  Sabbath  being  the  great 
est  sin  I  had  up  to  that  time  ever  heard  much  of. 

By  the  time  I  was  eight  years  old  I  assisted  my  elder  brother 
in  the  milking,  and  we  were  usually  in  the  barnyard  at  this 
work  at  all  seasons  of  the  year  before  seven  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  About  the  same  time  I  remember  with  what  pride  I 
yielded  to  the  request  that  I  would  ride  the  horse  for  the 
plough.  It  was  indeed,  I  think,  in  that  way  that  I  took  my  first 
lesson  in  equitation.  I  remember  also  very  distinctly  that  on 
the  second  day  of  this  experience  I  did  not  find  my  seat  in  the 
saddle  quite  so  pleasant  as  it  had  been  when  I  began.  I  did 
not  apply  for  the  situation  again  until  the  lapse  of  a  few  days. 

Following  the  ploughing  soon  came  the  hay-making  season. 
It  then  became  the  duty  of  my  brother  and  myself  to  spread 
the  hay  after  the  mowers,  later  in  the  day,  when  partially 
dried,  to  turn  it  over,  and  at  night  to  rake  after  the  men  who 
pitched  it  up  into  cocks.  The  next  morning  if  the  weather  was 
fair  we  spread  it  out  again  and  turned  it  over  so  that  it  might 
be  dry  enough  to  take  into  the  barn  or  to  stack  in  the  afternoon. 
When  the  teams  came  to  haul  it  in  it  was  our  duty  to  follow 
them  and  rake  up  the  droppings  after  the  pitcher.  Before  that 
season  of  haying  expired  I  had  also  learned  to  swing  the 
scythe,  which  was  then  the  height  of  my  ambition,  and  when 
some  of  the  men  remarked  that  I  did  it  very  nicely  I  felt 
prouder  than  I  should  now  at  receiving  the  decoration  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor. 

This  haying  was,  with  us  youngsters,  a  very  gay  season.  The 
sailors  from  our  sloops— for  my  father  had  two  or  three  plying 
between  Bristol  and  New  York— were  occasionally  invited  to 
come  up  and  help  the  farm-hands,  and  the  competition  between 
them  in  swinging  the  scythe  or  in  pitching  the  hay  was  a  source 
of  constant  amusement  to  us  as  well  as  to  the  men.  But  the 
moment  of  intensest  joy  every  day  I  experienced  at  about 
twelve  o'clock,  when  we  all  assembled  under  the  convenient 
shade  of  a  majestic  hickory  tree,  and  the  baskets  of  lunch  were 
opened  and  their  contents  spread  out  on  the  grass  by  my 
father,  who  sat  as  the  dispenser  of  their  luxuries,  and  of  the  big 
three-gallon  jug  of  water  from  the  spring  sweetened  with 


JUVENILIA  11 

molasses  and  sometimes  toned  up  with  a  little  sharp  vinegar. 
I  have  sat  at  many  fine  tables,  and  tasted  of  many  of  the 
delicacies  which  have  made  their  cooks  famous,  but  I  have 
never  known  elsewhere  the  joy  that  I  felt  in  eating  my  share 
of  these  rustic  meals.  Though  the  fare  was  of  the  plainest, 
and  of  course  as  cold  as  the  weather  would  permit,  our  appe 
tites  made  every  mouthful  a  delicacy. 

My  father,  as  I  have  said,  had  a  country  store  by  the  river 
side,  and  several  sloops,  all  of  which  were  built  on  his  prem 
ises  and  which  plied  between  Maiden  (as  it  came  to  be  called 
instead  of  Bristol)  and  New  York.  He  had  besides  a  farm  of 
about  one  hundred  and  fifty  acres. 

In  his  store  he  kept  supplies  of  every  nature  required  by  the 
people  living  within  travelling  distances— dry-goods,  grocer 
ies,  hardware,  tools,  some  medicines,  stationery,  molasses, 
vinegar,  potatoes,  in  fact  everything  for  which  there  was  a 
market  in  our  neighborhood.  He  bought  in  turn  whatever  the 
people  had  to  sell,  most  of  which  he  shipped  to  New  York  for  a 
market.  Much  of  their  produce  his  captains  sold  for  his  cus 
tomers,  simply  charging  them  the  freight.  In  those  days  the 
chief  articles  that  he  shipped  were  bark,  lumber,  leather,  wood, 
butter,  hay  and  sometimes  grain.  In  return  he  brought  sup 
plies  for  the  store,  and  hides  which  were  sent  up  to  be  tanned 
into  leather  in  the  Catskill  Mountains  at  Hunter,  Lexington, 
Hainesville  and  the  neighborhood,  where  there  was  an  abun 
dance  of  hemlock  forest,  the  bark  of  which,  in  those  days,  was 
then  used  exclusively  for  tanning  hides*  These  hides  had  to  be 
transported  by  land  eight  or  ten  miles  to  the  tanneries,  and 
when  tanned  the  leather  had  to  be  carried  the  same  distance 
back  to  the  wharf,  and  constituted  one  of  the  most  profitable 
articles  of  freight  for  our  sloops.  Soon  after  the  time  of 
which  I  am  speaking,  and  as  the  supply  of  hemlock  bark  was 
nearly  exhausted,  a  chemical  process  was  discovered  by  which 
hides  could  be  tanned  far  more  economically  and  expeditiously 
than  by  the  use  of  bark.  Of  course  the  tanneries  were  then 
soon  abandoned,  and  bark  had  no  longer  any  market  value. 
Almost  simultaneously  it  was  discovered  that  the  Catskill 
Mountains  and  their  foot-hills  were  a  pretty  continuous  and 
solid  mass  of  stone  deposited  in  layers  which  adapted  them 
for  paving-stone.  The  purchase  and  transportation  of  this 


12          RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

stone  at  length  supplanted  pretty  much  all  other  kinds  of  busi 
ness  at  Maiden. 

While  my  father  conducted  the  business  of  his  farm,  store, 
and  sloops,  he  and  his  family  lived  almost  exclusively  upon 
the  produce  of  his  farm  and  garden.  He  kept  cows,  horses, 
poultry,  pigs,  oxen  and  sheep,  and  he  raised  all  the  fruit  and 
vegetables  and  grain  which  were  consumed  in  the  stables  or  in 
the  house,  besides  raising  quite  a  surplus  for  sale.  The  stream 
which  I  have  spoken  of  as  passing  through  the  swamp  lot 
operated  a  grist  mill  about  two  miles  off,  where  our  corn  and 
wheat  were  carried  to  be  ground,  and  from  it  were  made  the 
bread  consumed  in  the  family,  and  the  '  i  stir-about "  for  the 
pigs  and  chickens  and  cows  and  turkeys  and  hogs.  Of  these 
latter  we  usually  killed  from  six  to  eight  in  December,  and  the 
impression  which  that  slaughter  left  upon  my  youthful  mind 
was  far  more  profound  than  any  account  I  have  yet  read  or 
heard  of  the  carnage  at  the  siege  of  Santiago. 

There  were  no  butchers  in  those  days  to  bring  us  meat,  nor 
shops  from  which  to  buy  it.  It  could  only  be  had  from  a 
farmer  here  and  there  who  chanced  to  raise  a  little  more  stock 
than  he  required  for  his  own  use,  or  was  brought  from  New 
York. 

Immediately  following  the  hog-killing  came  the  making  of 
sausages.  First  the  meat  had  to  be  chopped  in  large  wooden 
bowls.  This  was  a  process  in  which  we  were  sometimes  per 
mitted  to  take  a  hand.  When  finished  their  long  links  were 
taken  to  the  garret  and  hung  across  cords,  high  above  the 
reach  of  rats  and  mice  or  the  heads  of  visitors,  where  before 
the  following  morning  they  were  frozen  solid.  From  that  time 
until  March,  every  morning  one  or  more  of  these  frozen  links 
we-re  very  sure  to  be  sent  for,  put  into  the  frying-pan,  and  of 
these,  with  cakes  from  buckwheat  grown  on  the  place,  flavored 
with  the  gravy  from  the  sausage  instead  of  butter  usually,  and 
made  yet  more  toothsome  by  the  good  old-fashioned  New 
Orleans  molasses,  the  like  of  which  has  not  been  seen  now  for 
many  years,  with  a  cup  of  very  weak  coffee,  we  made  our 
breakfast.  I  say  that  no  such  molasses  has  been  seen  for  many 
years,  for  the  modern  process  of  extracting  the  sugar  from  the 
cane-juice  impoverishes  it  to  such  a  degree  that  the  molasses 
is  not  at  all  like  what  was  used  in  those  days,  and  is  otherwise 
unfit  for  the  table. 


JUVENILIA  13 

Soon  after  the  hog-killing  came  the  time  for  making  candles. 
We  had  no  electric  lights,  no  gas,  no  oil  even,  but  every  family 
who  had  the  material  for  it  was  accustomed  to  make  the 
candles  which  they  required  and  depended  upon,  for  artificial 
light".  That  process  was  always  a  very  interesting  one  to  me, 
and  needs  to  be  explained  to  enable  the  readers  of  this  genera 
tion  to  understand  how  much  families  had  to  do  to  secure  one 
of  the  greatest  comforts  of  life  for  which  they  now  are  re 
quired  only  to  touch  a  button. 

Our  kitchen  was  the  largest  room  in  the  house.  The  fire 
place  was  so  large  that  it  would  take  a  log  of  a  length  and 
weight  requiring  at  least  two  men  to  lift.  There  was  no  stove 
coal  used  or  even  known  to  exist  in  the  whole  United  States, 
so  far  as  I  know,  at  that  time.  Wood  and  corn-cobs  were  the 
only  fuel  which  I  had  then  ever  seen  used.  Corn-cobs  were 
used  chiefly  by  us  for  smoking  the  hams  cut  from  our  hogs; 
and  for  that  service  a  little  house  was  built  apart  from  the 
main  building  sufficiently  large  to  hang  and  smoke  fifteen  or 
twenty  hams  at  a  time,  the  smoke  of  burning  cobs  being 
thought  to  give  the  hams  a  special  flavor. 

When  candles  were  to  be  made,  a  great  iron  caldron  was 
first  provided,  capable  of  holding  eight  or  ten  gallons.  This 
was  filled  to  a  proper  extent  with  tallow  taken  from  the  ani 
mals  and  put  over  the  fire  until  its  contents  were  melted. 
Meanwhile  a  bundle  of  smooth,  straight  sticks,  about  two  and 
a  half  feet  long  and  about  as  thick  as  one's  largest  finger,  had 
been  provided,  on  which  all  the  female  part  of  the  household 
was  engaged  in  tying  strands  of  wicking  about  fourteen  inches 
in  length,  about  two  inches  apart  one  from  the  other;  and 
when  all  the  sticks  were  wicked  each  one  in  turn  was  taken  up 
by  the  projecting  end  of  the  stick  left  without  wicking  to  serve 
as  a  handle,  and  dipped  into  the  caldron  of  tallow  to  the  length 
of  the  wick,  immediately  taken  out  and  restored  to  its  place  on 
two  rails  which  had  been  placed  in  the  kitchen  for  the  tem 
porary  support  of  the  wicks  to  be  developed  into  candles.  As 
soon  as  the  tallow  on  the  wick  had  become  hard,  it  was  dipped 
in  again,  and  when  that  became  hard  the  process  was  repeated, 
and  so  on  until  the  candle  had  attained  satisfactory  propor 
tions.  This  process  was  pursued,  of  course,  with  all  the  bewicked 
sticks,  and  there  were  usually  in  the  kitchen  four  or  five  pairs 
of  rails  its  whole  length  to  support  these  wicks,  just  separate 


14         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

enough  from  each  other  to  admit  of  the  passage  of  the  atten 
dants.  The  part  of  the  wick  by  which  the  candle  was  sup 
ported  on  the  sticks  was  not  submerged  in  the  tallow,  and 
when  the  candles  were  finished  and  hard— they  were  generally 
left  over  night  for  that  purpose  on  the  sticks— they  were 
slipped  off  of  the  sticks,  clipped  at  the  end  to  make  them  easier 
to  light,  and  then  put  away  in  boxes  for  use. 

I  remember  when  my  father  sent  home  from  New  York  a 
pair  of  glass  lamps  with  wicks  and  oil  for  them,  the  event 
made  a  far  greater  sensation  in  our  household  than  the  intro 
duction  of  electric  light  at  The  Squirrels  nearly  seventy  years 
later. 

I  must  not  omit  to  tell  you  that  all  the  candles  that  I  ever 
saw  made  in  my  father's  house  were  made  by  my  mother,  my 
elder  sister,  the  one  female  servant  at  that  time  attached  to 
our  household,  and  such  aid  from  the  farm-hands  as  was  re 
quired  for  handling,  heating  and  filling  the  caldron. 

In  those  days  I  do  not  recollect  to  have  seen  a  cake  of  hard 
soap  in  our  house,  except  what  my  father  used  for  shaving. 
We  made  all  of  our  soap  for  laundry  and  all  other  purposes, 
so  far  as  I  can  recollect.  There  stood  in  the  wood-shed  a  large 
cask  of  about  the  capacity  of  a  hogshead,  but  about  twice  as 
large  in  circumference  at  the  top  as  at  the  bottom.  This  was 
filled  with  wood  ashes  from  our  own  fireplaces.  We  made  no 
other  kind.  Into  this  cask  a  pail  of  water  was  poured  several 
times  a  day,  which,  after  percolating  through  the  ashes,  came 
out  at  a  spigot  in  the  bottom  of  the  cask  as  lye.  This  lye  was 
then  thrown  into  another  cask  which  had  been  gradually  filling 
for  many  weeks  perhaps  with  the  fat  that  came  from  the  bul 
locks  and  pigs  not  otherwise  consumed  in  the  house.  I  think 
this  mixture  was  subjected  in  some  way  to  a  high  temperature, 
and  its  impure  ingredients  which  rose  to  the  surface  were 
skimmed  off.  The  result  was  what  was  known  in  those  days  as 
'  *  soft  soap. ' '  It  was  not  until  some  years  later  that  hard  soap 
was  used  in  our  house  or  in  the  neighborhood  for  laundry 
purposes. 

Most  of  the  bedclothing  of  the  family  was  made  in  the  house. 
My  father  usually  kept  a  flock  of  from  thirty  to  fifty  sheep. 
Their  wool  was  spun  into  yarn  by  the  females  of  the  house 
hold,  and  then  sent  out  to  be  woven  into  blankets  and  cloths. 
From  the  wool  thus  woven  all  our  flannel  underclothing  was 


JUVENILIA  15 

also  made.  Our  undershirts  were  dyed  at  home  with  coloring 
matter  extracted  from  the  goldenrod  which  it  was  the  business 
of  us  youngsters  to  gather  in  its  season.  The  every-day  suit 
of  clothes  which  I  wore  when  I  went  first  from  home  to  school 
in  Troy  was  made  from  this  cloth  by  a  tailor  brought  into  the 
house  for  the  purpose.  My  youngest  sister  went  to  school  in  a 
dress  made  of  cloth  woven  from  goldenrod-colored  yarn.  All 
our  stockings  were  knit  in  the  family,  and  mine  invariably 
came  to  the  knees. 

The  cellar  was,  as  it  were,  the  very  stomach  of  the  house.  In 
one  corner  was  a  large  bin  with  about  the  capacity  of  the  hall 
room  of  a  twenty-five  foot  New  York  house,  that  was  pretty 
nearly  filled  with  potatoes  taken  from  the  garden;  and  these 
not  only  supplied  the  family  until  the  new  potatoes  came  in,  in 
the  following  July,  but  it  also  furnished  seed  for  planting 
three  or  four  acres  in  the  spring,  besides  much  most  welcome 
nourishment  for  the  pigs.  It  used  to  be  our  duty  to  pick  out 
from  time  to  time  in  the  course  of  the  winter  all  the  potatoes 
smaller  than  a  hen's  egg,  and  they  were  thrown  into  the  large 
caldron  I  have  told  about,  holding  eight  or  ten  gallons,  and 
sufficient  water  added  to  boil  them  in.  When  properly  cooked 
they  were  thrown  into  a  large  barrel,  mixed  with  corn-meal, 
and  distributed  to  the  pigs  at  discretion. 

Next  to  the  potatoes  were  bins  piled  up,  one  with  turnips, 
another  with  pumpkins,  others  with  cabbages,  beets,  carrots 
and  whatever  other  winter  vegetables  the  garden  for  the 
season  afforded.  The  potatoes  were  carefully  covered  with 
straw  to  exclude  the  light,  which,  if  allowed  to  fall  upon  them, 
gradually  made  them  bitter  and  unfit  to  eat. 

In  another  corner  of  the  cellar  was  usually  collected  what  to 
us  seemed  a  mountain  of  apples  of  various  sorts,  which  occa 
sionally  we  were  told  to  look  over,  to  pick  out  any  that  were 
decaying.  There  were  also  stored  there  four  or  five  bar 
rels  of  cider  which  had  been  made  in  September  and  October, 
and  two  or  three  barrels  of  vinegar,  and  as  many  barrels  of 
pickled  cucumbers,  and  of  course  two  or  three  barrels  of  pork. 
In  the  garret,  I  must  not  forget  to  mention,  the  floor  for  about 
ten  feet  square  was  strewn  with  hickory  nuts  about  four  inches 
deep,  and  beside  them  another  square  of  the  same  dimensions 
covered  to  about  the  same  thickness  with  butternuts,  all  col- 


16         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

lected  from  the  farm.  On  winter  evenings  when  a  visitor  came 
in,  whether  for  social  or  business  purposes,  and  often  at  other 
times,  one  of  us  boys  or  more  were  sent  down  into  the  cellar  to 
bring  up  a  basket  of  apples,  a  capacious  pitcher  of  cider,  and 
then  to  the  garret  for  some  nuts.  From  the  wood  piled  up  for 
the  night  near  by  we  selected  a  hickory  log  sawed  at  one  end, 
which  we  stood  up  between  our  legs  as  we  sat  on  the  floor  and 
cracked  the  nuts.  We  did  our  share  also  in  eating  their  con 
tents.  My  father  was  fully  entitled  to  the  highest  compliment 
that  country  people  in  those  days  knew  how  to  pay  to  a  good 
husband— he  was  a  good  provider. 

We  were  fortunate  enough  to  have  no  physician  living 
within  two  miles  of  us,  and  he  was  not  so  dangerous  as  to 
make  us  afraid  of  him.  He  had,  so  far  as  I  recollect,  but  two 
weapons  with  which  to  kill  or  cure— the  lancet  to  bleed  with, 
and  calomel  to  cure  any  other  complaints  for  which  bleeding 
would  not  answer.  He  vaccinated  us,  when  I  presume  he  in 
jected  into  my  constitution  the  only  poison  with  which  it  has 
ever  had  to  contend.  I  do  not  remember  to  have  been  sick 
during  my  childhood  but  once,  and  then  my  brother  and  I  had 
what  was  called  erysipelas,  or  measles,  probably  a  result  of 
the  vaccination.  We  sent  for  no  doctor,  but  I  recollect  the 
occasion  rather  as  a  holiday  than  otherwise.  My  mother  spread 
a  sheet  on  the  kitchen  floor,  and  by  the  side  of  it  placed  a  large 
wooden  bowl  filled  with  corn-meal  which  we  threw  over  the 
parts  that  itched,  instead  of  scratching,  which  she  discouraged. 
I  had  no  other  consciousness  of  being  ill  than  the  itching  which 
I  managed  in  that  way  to  relieve,  and  within  a  day  or  two  we 
were  again  at  school. 

Our  doctor,  whenever  he  came  to  see  us  or  any  one  in  the 
village,  rode  upon  a  little,  old,  white  horse,  astride  of  a  pair  of 
saddle-bags  containing  all  the  tools  which  he  required  or  had 
learned  the  use  of.  Hence  the  members  of  his  profession  were 
not  infrequently  though  irreverently  referred  to  by  the  vulgar, 
not  as  the  doctor,  but  as  '  '  the  saddle-bags. ' ' 

Over  the  kitchen  fireplace  had  been  built  in  the  wall  a  closet 
about  four  feet  high  by  two  feet  broad.  In  this  my  mother 
kept  all  the  little  nostrums,  mostly  herbs,  which  she  thought 
she  had  found  useful  in  dealing  with  the  physical  ailments  of 
her  family.  One  day,  curious  to  know  what  this  closet  con 
tained,  I  rashly  climbed  up  on  the  high  back  of  an  old-fashioned 


JUVENILIA  17 

chair  to  look  into  it.  While  gratifying  my  curiosity  I  dis 
turbed  the  balance  of  my  chair,  and  down  I  came,  striking  the 
side  of  my  head  on  an  andiron  close  to  my  left  eye.  The  cut 
was  a  pretty  severe  one,  and  the  scar  from  it  was  visible  for 
more  than  thirty  years. 

Near  to  the  store  my  father  had  what  was  called  ' '  the  ship 
yard,  "  where  were  built  and  repaired  sloops  for  himself  and 
others.  When  the  workmen  went  to  their  dinners  they  were 
apt  to  leave  their  tools  where  they  had  been  working.  One  day 
I  was  playing  around  in  this  yard— I  fancy  I  must  have  been 
barefooted— while  the  men  were  absent,  and  one  of  my  big 
toes  struck  against  the  blade  of  a  broadax  with  which  some  of 
the  workmen  had  been  hewing  timber.  It  nearly  deprived  me 
of  that  toe,  but  not  quite ;  it  hung  down,  and  there  seemed  to 
be  nothing  to  do  with  it  but  cut  it  off.  However,  I  was  taken 
home,  and  my  mother  put  the  toe  again  in  its  place,  bandaging 
it  up  with  a  linen  rag  on  which  she  pasted  some  balsam  taken 
from  a  tree  which  grew  near  the  house  and  which  was  always 
relied  upon  for  the  healing  of  all  kinds  of  wounds.  The  toe 
rapidly  healed  up,  and  I  was  hopping  about  again  as  usual  in 
a  few  days,  but  the  toe  never  quite  resumed  its  former  shape, 
though  it  has  since,  so  far  as  I  know,  always  toed  the  mark  as 
faithfully  as  any  of  its  colleagues.  As  it  was  not  until  more 
than  half  a  century  later  that  physicians  were  received  at 
court  in  England,  perhaps  this  lack  of  reverence  for  the 
faculty  came  over  to  us  with  the  common  law.  In  neither  of 
these  cases  did  my  mother  invoke  the  resources  of  ' '  the  saddle 
bags/' 

I  have  said  that  my  parents  were  Presbyterians.  They  were 
more  than  that :  they  were  New  England  Presbyterians.  They 
were  more  than  that:  they  were  Connecticut  Presbyterians, 
and  they  meant  to  be  just  as  good  as  a  Connecticut  Presby 
terian  can  be.  They  were  very  strict  about  keeping  the  Sab 
bath.  They  ordinarily  commenced  their  Sabbath  Saturday 
afternoon,  and  not  infrequently  tried  to  make  us  remember 
that  the  Sabbath  had  commenced  before  our  half -holiday  had 
expired.  They  were  not  ascetical  at  all ;  on  the  contrary,  they 
were  always  cheerful  and  sensible.  They  had,  however,  been 
brought  up  to  distrust  the  influence  of  worldly  pleasures  and 
to  estimate  the  moral  efficacy  of  self-denial  at  a  much  higher 
figure  than  their  own— or  anybody  else 's— children  ever  did. 


18         KETEOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

The  first  church  I  ever  attended  was  the  Lutheran  Church 
at  a  place  about  two  miles  back  from  the  river  called  Kaatsban. 
It  was  built  of  stone  before  the  Revolution  by  the  Hollanders, 
who,  with  their  descendants,  constituted  the  majority  of  the 
population  in  Ulster  County  at  the  time  of  which  I  am  speak 
ing.  The  bread  of  life  was  broken  to  them  by  a  venerable- 
looking  pastor  with  a  remarkably  high  and  voluminous  white 
cravat  around  his  neck,  who  was  in  the  habit  of  preaching  one 
Sunday  in  Low  Dutch,  and  the  next  in  the  English  language. 
Unfortunately  for  him,  he  chose  to  exert  his  influence,  which 
was  pretty  absolute  among  the  Dutch  members  of  his  flock,  to 
oppose  the  charter  of  a  turnpike  road  which  should  shorten 
the  distance  considerably  between  the  river  at  Father's  landing 
and  the  tanneries  in  the  mountains.  My  father  was  discour 
aged  by  this  conduct  from  attending  the  church  any  more,  and 
of  course  from  contributing  toward  its  support,  and  inconti 
nently  set  to  work  to  induce  his  brothers-in-law  to  unite  with 
him  in  building  a  church  in  Maiden.  This  was  soon  accom 
plished,  and  the  Eev.  John  N.  Lewis  of  Brooklyn  was  the  first 
pastor.  He  was  a  son-in-law  of  Colonel  Edwards,  who  at  that 
time  was  the  largest  tanner  of  hides  in  the  mountains,  and  a 
connection  of  the  famous  Jonathan  Edwards  of  Northampton, 
Massachusetts.  There  was  usually  a  service  three  times  a  day 
on  Sunday  which  we  youngsters  were  obliged  to  attend,  be 
sides  a  prayer-meeting  in  the  middle  of  the  week,  not  to  men 
tion  other  occasional  ceremonies.  Of  the  preaching  in  that 
church,  and  of  the  religious  instruction  which  was  impressed 
upon  me  in  those  days,  I  only  remember  what  were  supposed  to 
be  the  terrible  consequences  of  a  sinful  life,  and  the  implacable 
nature  of  God.  I  do  not  remember  to  have  ever  heard  His  at 
tributes  presented  in  a  way  to  inspire  any  other  emotion  than 
of  fear  for  what  He  might  do  to  me.  As  that  kind  of  theology 
was  entirely  acceptable  to  the  chief  supporters  of  the  church,  of 
course  I  supposed  it  was  all  right ;  but  I  never  took  to  it  much. 

Before  the  church  was  built,  and  when  for  any  reason  we 
did  not  attend  church  in  the  afternoon,  it  was  pretty  uniformly 
one  of  my  duties  to  read  to  my  mother  a  chapter  from  Scott's 
Family  Bible,  and  his  Commentary  upon  it,  which  was  usually 
several  times  longer  than  the  chapter,  and  to  me  of  course 
much  less  intelligible.  This  was  dull  work  for  me,  because  I 
never  received  from  what  I  read  of  the  Commentaries  a  single 


JUVENILIA  19 

shadow  even  of  an  idea.  But  the  trial,  as  most  trials  in  this 
world,  was  mitigated  to  me  in  some  degree.  I  don't  think  my 
dear  mother  understood  or  at  least  took  much  more  interest  in 
the  Commentary  than  I  did,  and  it  was  with  great  pleasure  that 
I  would  see  her  frequently,  after  I  had  read  awhile,  gradually 
close  her  eyes  and  fall  off:  into  a  refreshing  slumber,  when  I  as 
quietly  as  possible  joined  my  brothers.  For  that  she  never 
rebuked  me,  God  bless  her.  On  other  occasions  when  sweet 
sleep  refused  to  come  to  my  relief,  I  would  occasionally  skip  a 
paragraph,  and,  by  dint  of  sundry  judicious  selections  of 
skipable  passages,  would  manage  to  shorten  the  doctor's  Com 
mentary,  always  without  in  the  least  impairing  my  good 
mother's  faith  in  its  logic  or  theology.  Sometimes  instead  of 
the  Bible  it  was  "The  Four-fold  State"  or  the  New  York  Ob 
server  that  I  was  required  to  read.  I  do  not  remember  the 
time  when  Father  began  to  take  in  that  paper,  but  it  was  never 
stopped  during  his  lifetime  nor  until  the  Civil  War  broke  out, 
when  its  sympathies  with  the  Confederates  compelled  the 
Maiden  remnant  of  the  family  to  substitute  for  it  the  New 
York  Evangelist. 

Speaking  of  our  Sunday  exercises  I  may  here  mention  a  first 
experience  of  mine  when  I  was  about  seven  years  old.  My 
father  was  in  the  habit  in  those  days  of  smoking  a  cigar  after 
dinner  on  Sunday  in  his  own  bedroom.  I  do  not  remember 
seeing  him  smoke  on  any  other  day.  Over  the  mantel  of  the 
fireplace  in  that  room,  as  over  the  mantel  in  the  kitchen,  was  a 
closet  let  into  the  wall.  In  that  closet  he  kept  among  other  odd 
things  a  box  of  cigars.  One  Sunday  afternoon  my  brother 
David  and  I  were  sitting  by  his  side  in  front  of  the  fire  while 
he  was  reading  the  New  York  Observer  to  himself  and  smok 
ing.  Brother  David,  with  an  audacity  which  surprised  me, 
reached  up  to  that  closet  and  took  out  of  the  box  two  cigars, 
proceeded  to  light  one  by  a  coal  from  the  fire  and  then  handed 
the  other  cigar  to  me  with  a  light.  I  looked  at  Father,  thinking 
that  he  might  have  something  to  say  about  this  experiment  of 
ours,  but  he  affected,  I  think  now,  not  to  see  what  was  going 
on.  We  were  both  very  soon  pulling  away  at  our  cigars  with 
the  zeal  of  all  beginners,  and  so  much  absorbed  was  I  in  the 
new  sensations  we  were  experiencing  that  I  did  not  notice  till 
my  cigar  was  half  burned  out  that  Brother  David  had  left  the 
room.  About  the  same  time  I  began  to  experience  unusual 


20         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

sensations  which  seemed  to  require  sympathy;  and  I  got  up 
and  went  out,  partly  to  look  him  up,  but  more  immediately  to 
find  my  way  to  the  pantry,  where  I  tasted  by  turns  everything 
on  the  premises  in  the  hope  of  getting  the  nasty  taste  of  the 
cigar  out  of  my  mouth.  I  tried  about  everything  there  that 
had  a  taste,  but  the  only  thing  that  gave  me  even  a  momentary 
satisfaction  was  smoked  beef.  But  that  was  only  momentary. 
Meantime  I  grew  pale  and  faint,  and  was  rapidly  reaching  the 
point  when  life  was  to  my  mind  ceasing  to  be  worth  living. 
Finally  I  decided  to  give  up  the  search  for  my  brother,  to  seek 
no  more  relief  in  the  pantry,  and  to  get  up  to  our  bedroom  as 
speedily  as  possible :  not  that  I  wanted  to  sleep,  but  that  I  did 
not  feel  any  longer  able  to  stand.  I  crawled  up  the  stairs  and 
stole  into  the  room,  when  what  was  my  surprise  to  find  my 
brother  already  there,  groaning  and  uttering  all  the  impreca 
tions  against  tobacco  that  were  in  any  respect  suitable  for  use 
on  the  Sabbath  day. 

His  experience  with  his  first  cigar  was  profitable  to  him,  for 
it  cured  him  of  any  taste  for  tobacco  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 
It  cured  me  also  for  many  years,  but  I  regret  to  say  not  for 
quite  so  long  a  time. 

The  year  following  my  return  from  Sharon,  my  brother  and 
I  were  sent  again  to  the  village  school,  and  here  I  may  say  my 
scholastic  education  practically  began— and  I*  was  near  saying, 
practically  ended— though  I  subsequently  spent  two  years  at 
the  academy  in  Troy,  and  four  years  in  two  different  colleges. 
I  never  had  such  profitable  instruction  from  any  teachers  as  I 
received  in  my  two  years  in  this  village  school.  Our  teacher— 
his  name  was  Woodburn— was  an  enthusiast  in  his  profession ; 
and  no  one,  I  think,  ever  sought  more  zealously  to  acquire 
knowledge  for  himself  than  this  man  sought  to  put  knowledge 
into  the  heads  of  his  pupils.  He  would  come  over  to  our  house 
in  the  winter  evenings  and  read  to  us  Rollin's  History  until  we 
were  obliged  to  go  to  bed,  and  later  got  in  the  habit  of  appear 
ing  at  the  house  before  daylight  in  the  morning,  and  calling 
us  to  get  out  of  bed  and  come  down  to  be  crammed  for  our  les 
sons.  At  last  I  remember  my  sister  interfered,  and  said  that 
I  should  not  be  called  so  early  in  the  morning ;  it  was  making 
me  ill.  Her  interference  broke  up  these  matutinal  visits,  but  at 
the  school  every  pupil  felt  the  effect  of  his  assiduity.  I  began 
Latin  with  him,  and  I  remember  the  special  privilege  which  he 


JUVENILIA  21 

extended  to  myself  and  one  of  my  cousins,  Samuel,  the  oldest 
brother  of  Cousin  William  Isham,  of  letting  us,  when  the 
weather  was  fine,  take  our  grammar  out  under  the  trees  in  the 
adjacent  woods.  We  were  learning,  I  remember,  the  different 
conjugations  of  the  verbs.  Mr.  Woodburn  would  give  us  a 
verb,  and  tell  us  as  soon  as  we  had  learned  it  to  come  in  and 
recite  it  to  him;  and  before  the  year  was  out,  I  don't  think 
there  was  a  regular  verb  or  many  irregular  ones  in  our  Latin 
grammar  that  I  could  not  conjugate  forwards  and  backwards 
as  readily  as  I  can  now  say  our  alphabet. 

In  those  days,  too,  great  attention,  was  given  to  spelling,  an 
art  sadly  neglected  in  these  days.  We  had  spelling  lessons 
every  day,  but  on  Saturday  forenoon  we  always  had  a  spelling 
match.  Our  school  consisted,  as  nearly  as  I  remember,  of  about 
an  equal  number  of  boys  and  girls— thirty  to  forty  in  all.  We 
were  arranged  in  a  line  from  one  end  of  the  school-room  to  the 
other,  according  to  our  rank  as  spellers.  The  teacher  then  put 
out  a  word  to  us  from  a  dictionary,  and  if  the  boy  at  the  head 
of  the  class  could  not  spell  it,  it  was  given  to  the  next,  and  so 
on  until  the  pupil  was  found  who  could  spell  it  correctly,  and 
then  the  victor  took  the  place  in  the  class  occupied  by  the  one 
who  first  failed ;  and  between  the  excitement  of  getting  up  in 
the  class,  and  the  mortification  of  having  the  girls  spell  words 
that  we  could  n't  spell,  and  the  novelty  of  the  game,  so  differ 
ent  from  other  class  studies,  it  caused  the  mistakes  and  fail 
ures  in  spelling  to  leave  a  profound  impression  upon  our 
minds ;  and  I  venture  to  say  that  none  of  the  children  who  were 
exercised  in  that  class  were  ever  during  their  lifetime  caught 
misspelling  words  in  common  use. 

Happily  for  us,  the  district  schools  in  those  days  received  no 
aid  from  the  Sta.te.  The  district  raised  the  money  among 
themselves  in  some  way,  and  selected  their  teacher  and  paid 
him  according  to  the  number  of  pupils  that  they  sent  to  the 
school.  The  position  of  teacher  had  not  yet  become  the  foot 
ball  of  politicians ;  and  teachers  were  not  selected  with  a  view 
of  giving  a  living  to  a  worthless  dependent,  but  exclusively 
with  a  view  to  securing  the  best  instruction  that  the  people 
could  afford.  In  those  days  such  teachers  came  mostly  from 
New  England,  as  Woodburn  did. 

We  used  to  be  let  out  of  school  for  ten  minutes,  perhaps 
twice  during  the  forenoon,  and  twice  during  the  afternoon,  and 


22         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

the  amount  of  playing  that  we  managed  to  do  during  those  ten 
minutes  is  almost  incredible.  One  of  the  amusements  that  I 
remember  most  distinctly  is  climbing  large  trees  in  the  adjoin 
ing  forest,  crawling  out  on  the  branches,  and  the  more  daring 
of  us  hanging  with  our  legs  crossed  over  the  branches  and  our 
heads  down,  and  at  other  times  getting  out  to  the  ends  of  the 
branches  until  they  would  bend  down,  and  then  dropping  from 
them  to  the  ground.  Those  were  thought  to  be  great  feats,  and 
no  accidents  ever  happened  from  them  during  my  time. 

The  school-house  was  on  the  top  of  the  hill,  and  there  was  a 
gradual  grade  to  the  river;  and  it  was  one  of  the  chief  re 
sources  in  winter  to  start  with  our  sleds  from  the  top,  and  go 
almost  the  whole  distance  without  stopping,  fully  a  quarter  of 
a  mile. 

In  the  winter-time  our  journey  to  school  would  be  thought 
by  children  nowadays  a  pretty  difficult  one,  and  often  consti 
tuted  an  ample  excuse  for  staying  at  home.  The  snow  was 
often  quite  deep  and  would  sometimes  drift  so  high  as  to  hide 
the  fences.  I  do  not  remember  to  have  ever  thought  of  staying 
at  home  from  school  on  account  of  the  weather,  though  the 
school-house  was  fully  three-quarters  of  a  mile  from  our  house, 
nor  of  ever  esteeming  it  in  the  least  a  hardship  or  anything  but 
a  pleasure  to  go.  I  never  had  on  my  feet  a  pair  of  overshoes 
until  eight  or  ten  years  after  that  time,  and  of  course  by  the 
time  I  reached  school  my  shoes  in  winter  were  full  of  snow, 
and  I  may  say  in  many  instances  the  rest  of  my  clothing,  for 
we  never  passed  another  boy,  nor  a  man  either  if  we  could  help 
it,  without  snowballing  him,  and  being  snowballed  in  return. 

It  is  strange  to  see  how  early  the  opposite  sexes  attract  each 
other.  I  could  not  have  been  more  than  nine  years  of  age  when 
I  was  attracted  by  a  little  girl  at  our  district  school  whose 
mother  had  just  settled  in  our  village.  She  was  what  any  child 
of  that  age  who  is  in  comfortable  circumstances  would  be— 
unsophisticated  and  healthy,  nothing  more— but  her  dress  was 
nice  and  she  looked  altogether  well  cared  for  and  a  little  out  of 
the  ordinary  in  her  attire.  I  remember,  the  morning  succeed 
ing  that  on  which  she  appeared  at  the  school,  putting  on  all  my 
Sunday  clothes  (for  in  those  days  there  were  nothing  but 
Sunday  dress  and  school  dress)  and  coming  to  breakfast.  My 
mother  remarked  the  change  immediately  and  said,  "Why, 


JUVENILIA  23 

John,  what  have  you  been  doing  f "  Of  course  I  had  no  answer 
to  make. 

'  '  Go  up  at  once  and  take  those  clothes  off. ' ' 

I  don't  remember  what  I  did  exactly,  but  I  don't  believe  her 
tone  and  manner  were  imperious  enough  for  the  emergency. 

Our  village  never  wasted,  or,  if  you  please,  improved,  much 
time  in  what  are  commonly  regarded  as  amusements.  It  was 
hardly  a  joke  to  say  that  the  principal  gayety  of  the  neighbor 
hood  was  an  occasional  funeral;  and  yet  our  domestic  circle 
was  always  happy  and  cheerful  and  contented.  The  only  event 
toward  which  I  can  remember  my  father  to  have  deliberately 
contributed,  of  which  amusement  was  the  only  end  and  pur 
pose,  was  to  give  Brother  David  a  shilling  or  two,  and  let  him 
take  me  with  him  to  Saugerties  on  foot  two  miles  off  to  a  circus 
which  had  just  arrived.  We  got  off  in  the  morning  as  soon  as 
we  had  done  the  chores  ( " chars ").  We  did  not  let  the  grass 
grow  till  we  got  to  the  circus,  and  between  the  elephant  and 
the  lion  and  the  monkeys,  the  day  flew  by,— only  half  of  it, 
however,  on  angel  wings ;  for,  after  paying  for  our  admission, 
what  was  left  for  refreshments  was  not  sufficient  to  make  any 
sensible  impression  upon  our  appetites.  Still  we  held  on  until 
near  sundown,  so  fascinated  were  we  with  this,  our  first  op 
portunity  of  studying  the  habits  of  beasts  of  prey. 

Neither  do  I  recollect  my  parents  ever  making  to  us  children 
during  that  period  of  my  life  any  presents,  as  such.  I  managed 
somehow  to  get  playthings— sleds  and  knives  and  things  that 
boys  must  have— but  I  had  in  'some  way  or  another  to  get  them 
myself.  My  want  of  them  was  never  anticipated ;  and  yet  no 
one  ever  had  kinder  parents. 

Thanksgiving  was  a  feast-day.  We  always  heard  a  sermon 
at  church  in  the  morning,  and  then  at  dinner  had  all  the  family 
and  as  many  of  the  collateral  relations  in  the  neighborhood  as 
could  come,  with  the  parson  and  his  family.  Our  dinner  was 
uniformly  of  the  standard  New  England  Thanksgiving  dinner 
type,  of  which  a  turkey,  mince,  apple  and  pumpkin  pies  were 
as  sure  to  be  there  as  the  parson  and  his  family.  Quilting- 
matches  and  corn  huskings  for  the  young  and  tea  fights  for  the 
elders  were  the  nearest  to  anything  like  systematic  gayety  that 
was  considered  good  form  in  Maiden.  A  proposition  to  dance, 
or  even  to  learn  to  dance,  would  have  ruined  the  reputation  of 
the  individual  who  propounded  it, 


24         EETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Among  the  Presbyterians  in  those  days  Christmas  was  not 
regarded  as  a  first-class  holiday.  It  was  solemnized  by  no 
religious  exercises.  It  was  regarded  as  savoring  a  little  of 
Eomanism.  However,  we  always  had  a  family  gathering  on 
the  day  if  the  weather  permitted.  The  only  incident  connected 
with  those  holidays  which  I  can  recall  was  the  arrival  of  a 
cousin,  quite  grown  up,  and  who  was  dressed  in  the  height  of 
fashion  for  that  community,  and  having  on  what  I  do  not  re 
member  to  have  ever  seen  before— a  pair  of  white  woolen 
pantaloons.  We  had  in  those  days  a  favorite  black  watch-dog, 
who  was  worth  on  such  a  place  as  ours  nearly  as  much  as  a 
man,  so  intelligent  was  he.  For  some  reason  which  the  dog 
never  explained,  he  did  n't  take  to  this  young  gentleman  when 
he  approached  the  house.  Perhaps  he  thought  him  over 
dressed.  At  all  events  he  sought  to  prevent  his  entering  by 
seizing  him  by  the  trousers.  As  the  cousin  was  determined  to 
go  on,  it  resulted  in  tearing  his  trousers  from  his  hip  nearly  to 
his  feet.  He  came  in,  of  course,  very  indignant  at  what  had 
occurred,  and  mortified,  no  doubt,  at  missing  the  effect  which 
he  had  anticipated  from  the  perfection  of  his  toilet.  I  remem 
ber,  so  wicked  was  I  then,  that  his  misfortune  was  mitigated  to 
us  in  a  very  considerable  degree  by  the  reputation  which  the 
young  man  had  earned  in  that  pious  community  of  being  some 
what  too  gay  and  festive  in  his  make-up. 

In  saying  that  we  never  received  any  presents  strictly  as 
presents,  I  perhaps  have  made  an  overstatement.  On  Christ 
mas  Eve  we  always  hung  up  our  stockings— at  first  by  the 
sides  of  the  fireplace,  and  later  on  the  bedposts. 

Of  course  before  daylight  we  were  up  looking  for  our  stock 
ings,  and  we  always  found  them  crammed  with  something— 
usually  things  to  eat :  candies,  njits,  oranges,  apples,  etc. 

In  those  days  the  only  mail  we  received  came  by  stage  up 
from  New  York  to  Albany  one  day,  down  the  next.  We  had 
no  daily  mail ;  a  steamboat  had  just  begun  to  run,  but  it  passed 
by  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river,  and  had  not  yet  been  em 
ployed  by  the  Government  as  a  postal  agency.  Correspondence 
by  mail  in  those  days  was  comparatively  expensive ;  the  post 
age  between  New  York  and  Albany  varied  between  one  and 
sixpence  and  two  shillings,  or  eighteen  and  twenty-five  cents. 

In  1824,  and  when  I  was  still  young  enough  to  care  nothing 
about  it,  Lafayette  revisited  this  country  for  the  last  time  and 


JUVENILIA  25 

was  received  with  public  honors.  On  the  opposite  side  of  the 
Hudson  Eiver  from  Maiden  was  what  was  known  as  the  Liv 
ingston  Manor,  and  almost  immediately  opposite  my  father's 
house  was  the  residence  of  Edward  Livingston,  and  only  a  few 
rods  below,  that  of  Chancellor  Eobert  Livingston,  who  had 
been  Secretary  of  State  and  Minister  to  France.  The  latter 
invited  Lafayette  to  visit  them,  and  he  was  brought  up  in  a 
steamboat— one  of  the  three  first  built  on  the  river.  It 
bore  the  name  of  Chancellor  Livingston,  who  had  been  the 
patron  and  friend  in  need  of  Eobert  Fulton,  who  planned  and 
constructed  the  first  vessel  propelled  by  steam  that  ever  vexed 
the  waters  of  the  Hudson  Eiver.  It  was  attended  by  a  large 
number  of  sailing  vessels,  and  crowds  of  people,  most  of  them 
coming  all  the  way  from  New  York.  My  father  in  those  days 
had  a  sloop  called  the  Phoenix,  rather  celebrated  among  the 
river  boatmen  for  her  speed.  He  rigged  out  this  vessel  with  all 
the  flags  he  had  or  could  borrow  in  the  town,  and  invited  all  the 
grown  people  of  the  neighborhood,  without  distinction  of  sex 
or  color,  to  sail  over  with  him  to  the  fete. 

I  remember  watching  the  Ph&nix  from  our  garden  as  she 
crossed,  her  deck  black  with  people,  and  comforting  myself  for 
the  lack  of  an  invitation  to  join  the  party,  under  a  peach  tree 
which  I  that  morning  discovered  for  the  first  time  had  some 
fruit  already  ripe  for  my  entertainment.  I  am  bound  to  say 
that  I  took  a  far  livelier  interest  in  those  peaches  than  I  did  in 
Mr.  Lafayette  or  his  party,  for  I  have  never  since  tasted  better 
peaches  than  I  thought  them  to  be.  The  enemies  of  the  peach 
had  not  yet  discovered  the  North  Eiver. 


II 

ACADEMIC  AND  COLLEGIATE  LIFE 
1830-1835 

E3KING  back  on  my  life,  I  realize  more  and  more  how 
trifling  was  my  share  of  influence  in  shaping  it. 
The  marriage  of  my  eldest  sister  to  a  gentleman  from 
Troy  and  his  establishment  there  in  business  gave  mine  a  di 
rection  of  which  I  little  foresaw  the  importance. 

Mr.  Kellogg  belonged  to  a  New  England  family  which  had 
settle^  in  Troy  before  he  was  born.  Unlike  most  New  Eng- 
landers  of  that  period,  he  had  become  an  ardent  Episcopalian. 

The  more  wealthy  citizens  of  Troy  at  that  period,  so  far  as 
I  had  the  means  of  judging,  seemed  also  to  be  of  that  com 
munion,  and  for  the  education  of  their  children  a  few  of  them 
had  established  a  school  on  the  eastern  hillside  of  Troy,  called 
the  Walnut  Grove  Academy.  It  is  not  strange  that  the  pro 
priety  of  sending  me  to  that  school  under  the  guardianship  of 
my  sister  was  discussed  in  family  council  and  finally  adopted. 

The  preparations  for  fitting  me  out  absorbed  for  a  fortnight 
or  more  the  energies  of  pretty  much  the  entire  household.  The 
only  feature  of  it  which  seems  to  me  now  worth  recording  is 
the  fact  that  an  entire  new  suit  of  clothes  had  to  be  manufac 
tured  for  me  from  wool  grown  by  our  own  sheep  and  spun  in 
our  own  house,  and  made  up  by  a  tailor,  one  of  whose  legs  was 
shorter  than  the  other,  residing  in  a  neighboring  village,  who 
came  to  our  house  to  do  his  part  of  the  work  of  turning  this 
cloth  into  garments  for  my  use.  Our  village  had  as  yet  pro 
duced  no  tailor  of  its  own.  I  remember  with  painful  distinct 
ness  the  instructions  given  to  Mr.  Snip  by  my  father,  to  be 
sure  to  make  the  garments  large,  as  I  was  growing  very 
rapidly. 

Our  journey  to  Troy  was  an  event.    We  embarked  on  board 

26 


THE  WALNUT  GROVE  SCHOOL  27 

of  the  Chief  Justice  Marshall,  then  a  comparatively  new  steam 
boat  in  the  as  yet  very  youthful  days  of  steam  navigation. 
She  usually  reached  our  wharf,  coming  from  New  York,  a 
little  after  dark.  My  mother  had  undertaken  to  be  my  escort. 
She  had  never  yet  put  her  feet  on  the  deck  of  a  steamer.  In 
those  days  the  steamers  did  not  touch  at  the  wharf,  but  the 
passengers  were  sent  on  shore  in  a  small  boat  attached  to  the 
steamer  by  a  cable  long  enough  to  reach  from  her  to  the  wharf, 
and  taken  off  in  the  same  way— a  somewhat  scary  and  ticklish 
business  to  those  unaccustomed  to  it,  as  the  steamer  was  often 
kept  under  pretty  nearly  her  full  headway  until  the  small  boat 
had  returned  to  her.  I  am  sure  my  mother  never  expected 
to  see  her  son  again,  and  I  was  amused,  when  I  jumped  up  the 
ladder  to  the  deck  of  the  steamer,  at  hearing  her  calling 
out  to  me  in  such  an  encouraging  tone,  ' '  Be  careful,  my  son. ' ' 
The  school  was  kept  by  Allen  Fisk,  a  man  of  great  personal 
dignity,  who  I  thought,  as  I  still  think,  was  well  qualified  for 
the  work  in  which  he  was  engaged ;  but  I  was  very  soon  to  en 
counter  the  trial  of  my  life.  That  suit  of  homespun  clothes, 
which  had  been  constructed  with  such  a  deliberate  eye  to 
future  growth,  for  a  few  weeks  made  life  a  burden  to  me.  At 
last  some  boy  with  a  keener  sense  of  the  ridiculous  than  any 
of  his  fellows  called  me  the  milkman.  I  did  not  remember  to 
have  ever  been  made  an  object  of  derision  before  in  my  life; 
and  though  this  epithet  was  applied  to  me  only  by  one  of  the 
boys,  I  felt  the  mortification  very  bitterly  and  wondered  why 
my  parents  should  have  exposed  me  to  it.  It  really,  however, 
did  me  no  harm,  for  I  found  very  soon  that  I  could  hold  my 
own  in  the  most  advanced  class  in  the  academy  very  well ;  that 
my  classmates  were  glad  to  have  me  coach  them  through  jfcheir 
difficulties  occasionally:  while  in  the  playground  I  had  no 
superior  of  my  age  in  any  of  the  games  that  we  played.  There 
was  a  kind  of  gymnasium  on  the  premises,  in  which  I  excelled, 
and  when  winter  came  there  was  a  long  hill  rising  up  from  the 
school-house,  down  which  we  used  to  slide.  I  came  to  be 
selected  pitcher  at  baseball,  because  I  had  acquired  a  knack 
of  throwing  the  ball  so  that  it  would  fall  down  by  the  side  of 
the  bat  instead  of  coming  straight  at  it,  and  the  batter  would 
pretty  invariably  miss  it,  and  if  caught  by  the  catcher  would 
"put  him  out,"  as  the  game  was  then  played.  I  was  at  once 
put  into  the  class  in  Virgil,  and  Mr.  Fisk  attached  consider- 


28         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

able  importance  to  scanning,  about  which  he  gave  us  excellent 
instruction  from  a  grammar  of  which  he  was  the  author.  I  am 
now  quite  conscious  that  I  was  entirely  too  young  to  profit 
fully  by  his  instruction  in  the  Latin  metres,  but  my  ear  for 
the  rhythm  of  the  Latin  hexameters  was  such  that  I  scanned 
it  quite  as  well  and  more  fluently  than  any  other  boy  in  the 
class.  By  degrees  the  boys  got  accustomed  to  my  homespun 
garments,  or  perhaps  I  grew  into  better  relations  with  them, 
and  thenceforth  they  ceased  to  be  a  reproach  to  me.  This 
would  hardly  be  worth  referring  to  here  but  for  the  illustra 
tion  it  furnishes  of  the  dependence  of  the  country  people  of 
that  period  upon  their  own  resources  for  pretty  much  every 
thing  they  consumed. 

My  schoolmates  were  the  Warrens,  the  Garys,  the  Eussells. 
the  Olyphants,  Le  Grand  Cannon,  Partridge,  George  Gay,  the 
latter  the  oldest  boy  in  the  school  and  at  the  head  of  his  class 
in  everything.  There  were  others  younger  whose  names  I  do 
not  recall.  Most  of  them  were  representatives  of  the  richer 
families  in  Eensselaer  County,  and  their  descendants  I  believe 
are  still  wealthy,  although  I  am  not  aware  that  any  of  them 
has  ever  attained  any  considerable  public  distinction. 

Most  of  Mr.  Fisk's  pupils  in  my  second  year  either  went  to 
college  or  into  clerkships.  I  followed  the  college  contingent, 
who,  as  they  were  all  Episcopalians,  were  sent  to  Washington 
College  in  Hartford,  an  institution  which  had  been  established 
with  the  pretty  distinct  purpose  of  encouraging  young  men 
to  enter  the  ministry  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church.  It 
was,  I  presume,  for  this  reason  that  its  name  several  years 
later  was  changed  to  Trinity  College. 

A  nephew  of  my  brother-in-law,  George  Osborn,  who  had 
already  been  at  Washington  College  one  year,  was  very 
anxious  I  should  join  him  there.  That,  rather  than  sympathy 
for  the  theological  features  of  the  institution,  decided  me  to 
go  to  college  and  to  that  college  in  particular. 

My  brother-in-law,  Mr.  Kellogg,  accompanied  me  to  Hart 
ford.  I  then  lacked  about  two  months  of  being  fourteen  years 
of  age.  Of  course  at  that  age  I  was  not  sufficiently  mature  or 
otherwise  properly  fitted  to  enter  college  in  any  department. 
I  knew  nothing  of  the  world,  nothing  scarcely  of  books  except 
such  as  I  had  had  occasion  to  use  in  my  classes.  That,  how 
ever,  did  not  delay  or  prevent  my  admission.  My  examiners, 


WASHINGTON  COLLEGE  29 

I  remember,  were  Bishop  Brownell  of  Connecticut,  then  the 
president  of  the  college ;  the  Rev.  Horatio  Potter,  afterwards 
Bishop  of  New  York ;  and  the  Latin  tutor,  whose  name  I  have 
forgotten.  The  college  was  poor  financially;  there  were  only 
about  twelve  students  in  my  class,  some  of  them  fourteen  years 
my  seniors,  and  not  exceeding  fifty  in  the  college  at  the  times 
I  entered  or  left  it.  Consequently  there  was  no  great  effort  to 
make  an  exhibition  of  my  ignorance  by  the  examiners,  and  in 
half  an  hour  after  I  went  into  the  room  feeling  like  an  ox  led 
to  the  slaughter,  I  came  out  with  the  assurance  of  the  president 
that  I  was  all  right. 

Two  great  events  signalized  my  residence  at  Hartford :  the 
cholera  which  broke  up  the  college  prematurely  in  the  summer 
of  1832,  and  the  visit  of  President  Jackson  with  Vice-Presi- 
dent  Van  Buren  in  the  summer  of  1833. 

I  was  at  this  college  until  the  last  term  of  my  junior  year. 
If  I  were  asked  to  state  what  I  learned  there  for  which  I  was 
beholden  in  any  way  to  the  college,  I  should  be  puzzled  to  tell. 
I  remember  to  have  read  a  considerable  number  of  Scott's 
novels,  from  which  I  derived  my  first  notions  of  history.  I 
read,  I  think,  every  story  that  Miss  Edgeworth  wrote,  or  at 
least  that  was  printed,  without  an  exception,  and  from  their 
teachings  I  think  I  received  many  indelible  ethical  impressions 
which  were  of  incalculable  value  to  me.  From  my  teachers  I 
cannot  persuade  myself  that  I  learned  much  if  anything,  or 
that  any  of  them  were  animated  by  the  least  desire  that  I 
should  learn  anything.  Nor  could  I  see  that  it  made  much 
difference  to  them  or  to  me  whether  I  learned  my  lessons  or 
did  not. 

As  an  illustration,  I  returned  two  or  three  days  late  to  join 
my  class  at  the  commencement  of  junior  year.  As  a  conse 
quence,  I  missed  the  first  two  lessons  in  conic  sections.  I  tried 
to  master  the  lesson  for  the  succeeding  day,  but  very  unsatis 
factorily  of  course,  being  ignorant  of  the  lessons  preceding.  I 
went  to  the  next  recitation,  where  no  notice  was  taken  either  of 
my  previous  absence  or  my  ignorance.  I  did  not  go  into  that 
class  again  through  the  whole  of  that  term,  nor  was  I  ever 
called  to  account  for  my  absence,  nor  any  notice  taken  of  it, 
that  I  am  aware  of,  by  the  government  of  the  college. 

I  am  tempted  to  introduce  here  a  letter  which  I  found  many 
years  later  among  the  papers  of  my  father,  which  indirectly 


30         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

appears  to  have  had  some  influence  in  abridging  my  stay  at 
Washington  College.  It  was  written  by  the  professor  of 
ancient  languages,  who  also  acted  as  college  bursar.  Though 
I  had  been  a  member  of  the  institution  already  two  years,  it  is 
worthy  of  remark  that  the  writer  did  not  know  how  to  spell 
my  name  correctly,  as  will  appear  in  addressing  my  father  on 
this  occasion. 


WM.  M.  HOLLAND  TO  ASA  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON  COLLEGE, 
HARTFORD,  11  January,  1833. 
ASA  BIGLOW,  ESQUIRE; 

Sir: 

I  beg  leave  to  request  your  particular  attention  to  the  rules  re 
garding  the  Bursar's  Department  in  this  Institution  contained  in  the 
annexed  circular.  Seventy-four  dollars  were  deposited  with  me  by 
your  son,  John  Biglow,  on  the  17  May  last— since  which  period  he 
has  deposited  no  money  in  my  hands :  though  his  term  bill  for  college 
expenses  for  the  term  ending  on  20  Dec.  last  has  been  paid :  His  bill 
for  the  term  commencing  3rd  of  this  month  was  due  on  that  day  & 
as  we  take  no  bonds  from  students  or  parents  we  are  obliged  to  re 
quest  payment  in  advance— to  which  rule  you  will  permit  me  also  to 
ask  your  attention. 

I  do  not  write,  Sir,  because  I  have  observed  any  habits  of  extrava 
gance  in  your  son — on  the  contrary  I  think  him  entirely  discreet  and 
frugal ;  but  because  a  departure  from  our  constant  rule  cannot  in  any 
case  be  conveniently  made  without  an  invidious  distinction. 

I  can  speak  with  great  satisfaction  of  the  amiableness  &  excellent 
understanding  of  your  son,  &  I  think  he  only  needs  to  have  the  exuber 
ant  spirits  of  youth  tempered  with  a  few  more  years  to  be  a  credit  & 
happiness  to  those  who  are  interested  in  him. 

I  am,  Sir,  Respectfully,  Your  obedient  servant 


The  faculty  of  the  college  at  this  time  consisted  of  the  Rev. 
N.  S.  Wheaton,  president ;  the  Eev.  Horatio  Potter,  professor 
of  mathematics  and  natural  philosophy;  William  M.  Holland, 
professor  of  ancient  languages;  J.  S.  Eogers,  professor  of 
chemistry  and  mineralogy;  the  Rev.  S.  S.  Lewis,  tutor  and  li- 


WASHINGTON  COLLEGE  31 

brarian ;  and  G.  A.  Perdicaris,  teacher  of  the  Greek  language. 
There  were  also  nominal  professors  of  botany,  of  law,  and  of 
the  Oriental  languages,  but  there  was  no  instruction  given  in 
those  departments. 

The  following  list  of  necessary  expenses  as  given  in  the 
college  circular  will  help  one  to  realize  the  difference  between 
the  college  expenses  in  New  England  in  the  early  quarter  of 
the  twentieth  century  and  the  early  quarter  of  the  nineteenth. 

College  bills -.     .  $60  $60 

Board,  40  weeks from  50  to   70 

Fuel,  light,  washing "  16  "     30 

Use  of  books,  stationery,  furniture  ...     "  10  "     30 

Taxes  in  classes "  5  "      8 

Total  per  an $141      $198 

The  circular  continued : 

In  regard  to  all  monies  and  expenses  the  following  provisions  of 
the  college  laws  must  be  strictly  complied  with  :— 

To  prevent  extravagant  or  improper  expenditure  by  the  Students, 
all  monies  designed  for  their  use  shall  be  placed  by  their  parents  or 
guardians  in  the  hands  of  the  college  Bursar,  who  shall  superintend 
their  expenses  with  a  parental  discretion.  No  Student  may  purchase 
anything  without  his  permission.  All  necessary  articles  for  the  Stu 
dent's  use  are  to  be  paid  for  by  the  Bursar,  who  shall  keep  a  correct 
account  with  each  Student  of  all  receipts  and  expenditures  on  his 
behalf,  and  shall  receive  a  fixed  salary  for  his  services;  and  he  shall 
charge  each  Student  with  three  per  cent,  on  all  monies  so  disbursed, 
and  pay  the  same  into  the  college  treasury.  //  any  Student  shall  re 
ceive  any  money  which  does  not  pass  through  the  hands  of  the  Bursar, 
he  shall  be  liable  to  dismission  from  the  Institution. 

My  father  did  not  approve  of  paying  the  money  in  advance 
to  the  bursar,  probably  because  he  did  not  know  how  many 
college  students'  went  away  without  paying  their  bills  at  all. 
Besides,  as  my  correspondence  with  my  father  showed,  he 
wanted  from  me  an  account  of  my  expenses  direct,  rather  than 
through  the  bursar.  I  regret  to  say  that  he  was  no  better  satis 
fied  with  my  accounts  than  he  probably  would  have  been  with 
the  bursar 's ;  for  they  were  all  too  trifling  to  remember,  and  I 
probably  regarded  it  as  a  waste  of  energy  and  of  playtime  to 


32         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

keep  an  account  of  the  trifling  sums  I  had  to  spend.  My  father 
was  quite  right  in  requiring  of  me  an  account  of  my  expendi 
tures,  but  it  was  more  his  fault  than  mine  that  he  did  not  get 
such  an  account.  Had  he  begun  when  I  was  six  or  seven  years 
old,  as  all  parents  should  with  their  children,  to  give  me  a  dime 
a  week  or  fifty  cents  a  month  for  pocket-money  to  spend  as  I 
pleased,  but  to  be  as  regularly  accounted  for,  I  should  have 
contracted  a  habit  which  would  have  made  a  compliance  with 
his  wishes  no  task  at  all.  But  he  never  gave  me  any  pocket- 
money  while  living  at  home,  probably  because  I  had  no  use 
for  any  then  and  there. 

If  I  owe  anything  to  Washington  College,  it  is  the  devel 
opment  of  a  taste  for  such  intellectual  pleasures  as  books 
suited  to  my  age  and  instruction  could  give.  I  read  a  great 
deal  for  one  of  my  age,  and  books  that  it  is  no  harm  to  any  one 
to  have  read,  though  not  the  kind  of  books  suited  for  the 
exclusive  intellectual  diet  of  a  boy.  But  there  were  no  in 
centives  offered  in  or  out  of  the  classroom  by  the  government 
of  the  college  to  read  anything,  and  I  foraged  in  the  libraries 
of  the  college  at  my  own  sweet  will.  I  marvel  now  that  the 
books  I  selected  were  all  so  entirely  unobjectionable. 

Our  recreations  were  usually  a  walk  through  town  in  the 
afternoon,  or  a  swim  in  a  stream  encircling  the  college  build 
ing,  called  Hog's  Creek,  and  down  the  steep  banks  of  which 
we  tumbled  whenever  free  to  select  our  own  employments,  and 
where  I  became  quite  renowned  as  a  diver  for  pebbles. 

I  had  been  instructed  by  my  parents  to  visit  an  old  uncle 
who  lived  in  Hartford  with  two  maiden  daughters,  but  as  they 
never  offered  me  any  refreshments  when  I  called,  and  boys  are 
not  appreciative  of  entertainment  without  nourishment,  the 
relationship  was  not  cultivated. 

I  spent  three  years  at  Washington  College  less  one  term. 
When  the  junior  appointments  were  given  out  in  the  middle 
of  my  third  year,  I  was  extremely  mortified  to  find  that  I  was 
the  only  one  in  my  class  of  twelve  then  in  attendance  who  had 
not  received  an  appointment.  Under  ordinary  circumstances 
1  might  have  attributed  that  indignity  to  neglect  of  my  college 
duties,  but  I  suspected  other  reasons. 

It  was  my  misfortune,  or  my  fortune,  to  occupy  a  room 
immediately  over  the  rooms  of  Professor  Holland,  our  teacher 
in  Homer,  and  whose  influence  in  the  college  faculty  at  that 


MY  ROOM  IN  COLLEGE   TAKES  FIRE  33 

time  was  potential.  My  room  was  very  much  frequented  by 
my  friends  in  the  same  section,  who  came  there  as  freely  when 
I  was  absent  as  when  I  was  present,  I,  whether  present  or  ab 
sent,  getting  the  credit  for  all  the  noise  they  made.  Hence  fre 
quent  complaints  were  made  by  the  professor,  who  not  un 
naturally  became  a  prey  to  the  suspicion  that  the  disturbance 
by  which  he  was  annoyed  was  not  entirely  involuntary  on  my 
part— a  suspicion,  however,  which  was  entirely  unjust.  This 
suspicion  may  have  been  confirmed  and  aggravated  by  the 
following  incident. 

The  room  adjoining  mine  in  the  rear  was  occupied  by  a 
young  man  from  Pennsylvania  by  the  name  of  Natt,  an  in 
choate  theologue,  who  had  recently  recovered  from  the  small 
pox.  I  went  in  about  eight  o'clock  one  evening  to  chat  with 
him,  leaving  directly  before  my  own  wood  fire  the  armchair 
which  I  usually  occupied,  the  hardness  of  which  was  amelio 
rated  by  a  thickly  wadded  quilt  which  my  mother  had  provided 
me  with,  spread  over  it  as  a  cushion  and  a  shelter  from  pre 
datory  breezes.  I  was  sitting  with  my  friend  when  we  both 
detected  by  our  noses  that  something  was  burning  that  should 
not  be,  and  that  smoke  was  coming  through  under  the  partition 
dividing  his  room  from  mine.  I  rushed  back  to  find  that  a 
spark  had  snapped  out  from  my  wood  fire,  set  fire  to  my  cover 
lid,  and  the  room  so  full  of  smoke  that  I  could  only  endure  it 
long  enough  to  seize  the  blanket  and  drag  it  out  into  the  hall. 
I  then  rushed  downstairs  for  a  pail  of  water.  Meantime,  not 
only  the  other  students  of  the  section  had  come  to  the  scene 
of  the  conflagration,  but  Professor  Holland  also  had  left  his 
bed  and  was  there,  after  a  very  hasty  toilet.  When  I  arrived 
with  my  pail  of  water,  of  course  I  had  no  thought  but  to  put 
out  the  fire,  and  not  until  after  I  had  swung  my  pail  beyond 
control  did  I  discover  that  the  water  was  aimed  at,  and  would 
hit,  the  naked  legs  and  feet  of  the  professor.  I  had  no  time  to 
apologize  and  secure  his  forgiveness  for  what  he  might  and 
probably  did  suppose  was  an  intentional  indignity,  the  ex 
tinction  of  the  fire  of  course  absorbing  all  my  attention.  The 
worst  of  it  was  that  some  of  the  boys  laughed  when  they  saw 
the  water  strike  the  professor. 

From  that  time  forth  I  began  to  think  I  could  pursue  my 
studies  in  another  college  without  parting  with  a  friend  in 
Professor  Holland. 


34         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

My  elder  brother  David  had  recently  entered  Union  College, 
where  he  wished  to  take  a  non-classical  course;  and  in  a  note 
of  which  the  following  is  an  extract  he  made  me  feel  that  I 
should  like  to  be  with  him : 

'  '  John,  I  wish  you  would  come  on  here  next  term  with  me,  as 
I  think  it  will  be  better  for  you  and  for  both  of  us.  It  is  al 
lowed,  I  believe,  to  be  the  best  College  for  Junior  &  Senior 
years  that  there  is;  two  Seniors  came  on  last  week  from 
Geneva  College,  there  are  Seniors  here  from  almost  all  the 
colleges.  You  will  soon  be  a  Senior,  you  know.  It  must  be 
an  elegant  place  in  summer,  I  know  from  the  appearance, 
as  it  is  situated  on  a  hill  which  overlooks  the  city,  &  has  quite 
a  large  view  of  the  country  round.  I  think  you  would  like 
it  well." 

My  father,  not  without  some  hesitations,  yielded  to  my 
wishes.  I  accordingly  asked  for  and  received  an  honorable 
dismission,  and  entered  the  last  term  of  the  junior  year  of 
1834  at  Union  College,  where  I  took  my  degree  in  1835. 

I  had  reason  to  congratulate  myself  upon  the  change.  The 
faculty  was  a  much  stronger  one  all  around,  and  among  them 
were  several  men  whose  instruction  was  stimulating.  Dr. 
Nott,  the  president,  when  he  met  us,  was  always  edifying  and 
impressive.  Unhappily,  his  business  cares  allowed  us  to  see 
him  rarely,  except  on  the  Sabbaths.  His  occasional  lectures  to 
the  class  on  Kames's  "Elements  of  Criticism"  received  pro 
found  attention.  Alonzo  Potter,  who  was  the  practical  head 
of  the  college,  and  whose  wife  was  a  daughter  of  President 
Nott,  was  also  a  teacher  of  mark.  We  never  left  his  class 
without  getting  there  something  that  seemed  worth  going 
there  for.  The  Greek  professor,  Dr.  Proudflt,  was  also  a 
thorough  Hellenist  of  the  old  school.  We  read  with  him  the 
plays  of  ^Eschylus  and  portions  of  the  New  Testament.  He 
was  a  very  amiable  man,  and  personally  very  much  respected 
by  the  students,  but  of  little  account  as  an  instructor. 

The  library  of  the  college  at  that  time  was  very  meagre ;  in 
fact,  the  college  could  hardly  be  said  to  have  a  library,  the 
collection  was  so  insignificant.  However,  such  as  it  was  I  was 
more  indebted  to  it  than  to  my  instructors  for  whatever  of 
knowledge  I  brought  away  from  the  institution.  I  remember 
to  have  found  in  it  and  read  with  great  interest  Lyttelton's 
"Dialogues  of  the  Dead." 


A  DISAPPOINTMENT  TO  RESENT  35 

There  was  one  incident  near  the  close  of  my  course  at 
Schenectady  which  I  will  here  set  down  for  the  lesson  it  con 
tains  to  those  who  have  to  deal  with  the  education  of  young 
people.  My  father  had  not  been  satisfied  at  all  with  the  results 
of  my  residence  at  Washington  College,  and  for  his  sake  I  was 
anxious  to  bear  away  from  Union  some  token  of  scholarship 
which  would  please  him.  I  was  therefore  scrupulously  atten 
tive  in  the  classroom,  and  prepared  myself  for  my  lessons  so 
thoroughly  that  I  ranked  maximus  in  most,  and  pretty  close  to 
that  in  all  my  studies.  When  I  went  home  in  the  spring 
vacation  I  felt  quite  sure  of  an  appointment  of  some  sort  for 
the  commencement  exercises  at  graduation,  to  which  my  class 
standing  clearly  entitled  me.  As  a  man's  rank  in  college  is 
fixed  at  the  close  of  the  spring  term  of  his  last  year  in  college, 
the  seniors  were  allowed  unusual  freedoms.  Among  them  was 
a  constructive  privilege  of  lengthening  their  vacation  a  few 
days  longer  than  was  permitted  to  the  lower  classes,  for  the 
preparation  of  their  commencement  speeches,  I  suppose.  I 
deemed  this  a  privilege  of  which  it  was  my  duty  to  avail  my 
self.  The  second  or  third  day  after  the  term  commenced,  I 
received  a  note  from  one  of  my  classmates  informing  me  that 
the  appointments  had  been  announced,  and  none  had  been 
assigned  to  me.  It  was  a  very  acute  disappointment.  I  started 
by  the  next  conveyance  for  Schenectady,  and  at  an  early  hour 
on  the  morning  after  my  arrival,  I  called  at  the  office  of  Pro 
fessor  Potter  and  asked  if  the  report  which  had  reached  me 
was  correct.  He  said  it  was,  and  proceeded  to  account  for  it 
by  saying  that  the  faculty  had  decided  to  give  no  appointments 
to  any  student  who  was  not  present  at  the  opening  of  the 
term.  As  I  knew  this  was  contrary  to  all  the  traditions  of -the 
college,  with  which  students  are  sure  to  be  familiar,  and  felt 
quite  confident  that  it  had  been  adopted  for  this  class  for  the 
first  time  in  the  history  of  the  college,  my  imagination  sug 
gested  many  reasons  for  this  procedure,  none  of  which,  how 
ever,  could  I  reconcile  with  honor  on  the  part  of  the  faculty  or 
with  justice  to  the  class. 

I  left  the  professor's  room  burning  with  indignation  toward 
him  and  toward  tfte  institution.  I  was  not  unreasonable 
enough  to  suppose  that  there  were  not  enough  in  that  class  of 
one  hundred  and  thirteen,  many  of  them  some  five  or  six  years 
my  seniors,  who  were  much  more  likely  to  do  credit  to  the 


36         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

college  at  commencement  than  I  was,  then  a  stripling  of  but 
seventeen  years ;  nor  should  I  have  felt  surprise  if  I  had  been 
told  that  in  consequence  of  the  size  of  the  class,  and  of  my 
youth,  it  was  difficult,  even  impossible,  to  make  up  a  list  of 
speakers  suitable  for  commencement  orators  that  would  in 
clude  me  without  enlarging  the  list  so  as  to  exceed  the  time 
which  could  be  given  to  such  exercise.  This  could  have  been 
said  in  a  note  or  a  circular  to  myself  and  the  many  others  who 
had  been  similarly  trapped,  accompanied  with  a  few  words 
recognizing  our  rank  and  scholarship  and  claims  to  recogni 
tion  when  the  honors  of  the  college  were  being  distributed. 
Even  had  Professor  Potter  simply  said  that,  as  there  were 
many  speakers  in  the  class  better  qualified  than  myself  to 
take  part  in  the  exercises  of  commencement,  and  as  the  num 
ber  had  to  be  limited,  it  became  the  duty  of  the  faculty  to 
leave  me  out,  I  never  should  have  murmured ;  but  the  convic 
tion  that  the  reason  assigned  by  the  professor  was  not  the  true 
one  was  so  strong  that  I  have  never  been  able  to  feel  toward 
that  institution  again  as  my  Alma  Mater. 

At  the  close  of  a  letter  received  from  Father  shortly  after 
reaching  Schenectady,  I  was  pleased  as  well  as  surprised  to 
read  the  following  postscript : 

"N.  B.— Since  writing  the  above  I  have  reed,  a  letter  from 
Mr.  Holland  saying  you  were  correct  and  that  all  debts  were 
paid  as  far  as  he  knows— &  I  give  you  his  words :— *I  take  this 
occasion  to  say  that  we  regretted  losing  your  son  from  among 
our  scholars.  The  last  session  but  one  he  was  here  we  were 
not  well  pleased  with  his  deportment,  and  he  has  at  all  times 
a  buoyancy  of  spirits  which  sometimes  becomes  troublesome — 
but  for  the  last  session  he  behaved  well  &  studied  faithfully 
and  had  a  high  standing  in  his  class.  With  the  hope  he  may 
be  eminently  useful  in  all  situations,  I  am,  &c.,  W.  M. 
HOLLAND.'  " 


A.D.  1817 


John  Bigelow 


A.D.  1838 


m 

LAW  STUDENT  AND  LAWYEE 
1835-1848 

I  SPENT  the  summer  at  home,  much  of  the  time  deliber 
ating  with  myself  and  with  my  people  of  what  I  should 
do  next.  I  had  no  definite  plan  for  the  future.  Only 
upon  one  point  was  I  determined:  not  to  go  into  my  father's 
business.  There  was  not  more  than  enough  for  my  brothers. 
Independently  of  that,  I  realized  that  during  the  last  four 
years  I  had  contracted  tastes  and  conceived  ideas  which  I 
knew  could  never  be  indulged,  still  less  satisfied,  in  Maiden. 
The  alternative  seemed  to  me  to  be  a  literary  profession 
of  some  kind.  What  I  had  seen  and  heard  of  and  from 
parsons  did  not  attract  me  to  the  church.  Doctoring  I  was 
ignorant  enough  to  think  an  unpleasant  business.  The  law 
seemed  to  open  the  widest  horizon  in.  our  country  and  the  one 
that  offered  most  attractions.  My  father  seemed  disposed  to 
encourage  that  preference.  But  where  and  how  to  prosecute 
it  f  There  were  no  law  schools  in  those  days,  in  New  York  at 
least,  and  the  profession  had  to  be  studied  in  the  office  of  some 
practising  lawyer  for  a  term  of  years  and  until  the  student 
could  pass  an  examination  by  the  members  of  the  bar  ap 
pointed  by  the  Supreme  Court  for  that  purpose.  My  family 
had  few  acquaintances  with  members  of  the  legal  profession, 
and  with  none  whom  I  cared  to  be  associated  with.  Finally, 
and  through  whose  instigation  I  have  no  recollection,  I  applied 
to  the  firm  of  Bushnell  &  Gall,  at  Hudson,  for  the  privilege  of 
a  student's  seat  in  their  office.  Neither  of  the  firm  was  known 
professionally  or  otherwise  to  any  member  of  my  family.  I 
received  a  favorable  reply  to  my  application,  and  early  in 
September,  1835,  packed  my  trunk,  went  to  Hudson,  and  matric- 

37 


38         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

nlated  in  their  office  as  a  student  of  law.  Mr.  Bushnell  was 
one  of  the  soundest  lawyers  then  practising  in  the  upper  Hud 
son  River  counties,  and  I  soon  conceived  for  him  great  regard. 
He  was  a  brother  of  the  Rev.  Horace  Bushnell,  pastor  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church  of  Hartford,  Connecticut,  whom  many 
years  later  I  learned  to  regard  as  one  of  the  very  wisest 
and  most  spiritual  shepherds  that  the  American  pulpit  has 
produced.  His  " Moral  Uses  of  Dark  Things"  is  alone  enough 
to  justify  this  estimate  to  all  whose  spiritual  vision  is  suffi 
ciently  open  to  comprehend  it. 

Mr.  Gall  was  Mr.  Bushnell 's  junior  partner  and  a  much 
younger  man.  There  were  two  students  in  the  office  when  I 
arrived.  One  was  Mr.  Frank  Marbury,  who  was  to  be  ad 
mitted  either  that  or  the  following  year.  The  other,  whose 
name  I  do  not  now  recall,  was  an  agreeable  young  man,  but 
in  delicate  health.  He  died  soon  after  his  admission  to  the 
bar.  It  became  my  duty  as  the  junior  student  in  the  office, 
which  was  a  small  one-story  building  adjoining  the  residence 
of  Mr.  Bushnell,  to  be  at  the  office  at  seven  o'clock,  sweep  it 
out,  and  make  the  fire.  I  returned  to  my  boarding-house  for 
my  breakfast,  and  at  nine  o'clock  I  was  again  at  the  office, 
where  I  remained  until  dinner,  which  consumed  an  hour.  I 
then  returned  to  the  office,  and,  with  the  exception  of  an  hour 
for  supper,  remained  until  both  the  principals  were  ready  to 
close  up  and  go  home,  which  was  usually  between  nine  and  ten 
o'clock.  There  was  no  eight-hour  limitation  of  labor  law  in 
those  days,  nor  did  it  ever  occur  to  me  that  these  office  hours 
were  either  unreasonable  or  irksome.  Though  my  chiefs  did 
not  usually  arrive  before  9  A.M.,  I  never  tarried  at  night  later 
than  they  did. 

I  remember  the  first  book  that  Mr.  Bushnell  put  into  my 
hands  to  read  was  Reeves 's  "Treatise  on  the  Domestic  Re 
lations.  ' ' 

I  had  not  been  many  weeks  in  the  office  before  the  rumor 
reached  me  that  Mr.  Bushnell  had  been  invited  by  Charles  B. 
Butler,  Esq.,  the  brother  of  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  who  had 
been  Attorney-General  of  the  United  States  under  General 
Jackson,  to  join  his  firm  in  New  York  City,  and  had  accepted 
the  invitation.  This  of  course  was  a  surprise  to  me  and  set  me 
to  thinking  how  I  was  to  be  affected  by  the  change.  I  soon 
learned  that  Mr.  Marbury  was  going  with  Mr.  Bushnell  as 


STUDENT  OF  LAW  39 

managing  clerk  for  the  New  York  firm,  and  that  there  was  no 
place  in  the  New  York  office  for  a  beginner  like  myself.  Mr. 
Gall  wished  me  to  remain  with  him.  To  this  I  found  myself 
disinclined,  although  I  don't  precisely  know  why.  As  far  as  I 
was  concerned,  I  did  n't  seem  to  have  any  tastes  in  common 
with  him,  and  when  I  rode  with  him,  as  I  sometimes  did  on 
professional  visits  about  the  country,  we  had  nothing  to  talk 
about  with  each  other.  I  made  up  my  mind  that  if  Mr.  Bush- 
nell  was  going  to  New  York  I  might  as  well  go  there  too.  In 
this  my  father  fortunately  concurred. 

In  the  latter  part  of  October  I 'took  leave  of  Hudson  and  en 
gaged  a  passage  on  board  of  the  Chief  Justice  Marshall  for  New 
York.  Upon  the  recommendation  of  Mr.  Bushnell,  I  found  a 
place  in  the  office  of  Anthony  Dey  and  B.  F.  Bonney,  which  at 
that  time  was  on  the  first  floor  of  a  building  on  the  corner  of 
Cedar  and  Nassau  streets,  which  is  now  occupied  by  the  Bank 
of  Commerce.  It  curiously  happened  that  the  very  first  office  I 
ever  leased,  after  my  admission  as  an  attorney,  was  the  very 
same  room  that  Mr.  Bonney  and  I  had  occupied  while  I  was 
his  disciple.  Mr.  Dey  was  a  land-speculator  and  never  much 
of  a  lawyer.  Mr.  Bonney,  his  partner,  was  a  middle-aged 
bachelor,  a  good  lawyer  and  a  very  hard  worker.  He  was  then 
comparatively  unknown,  but  he  afterwards  became  a  leading 
chancery  lawyer  and  was  elected  for  one  or  two  terms  as  a 
judge  of  one  of  our  higher  courts.  I  was  not  indebted  to  him, 
however,  for  any  knowledge  of  my  profession  except  what  I 
acquired  from  copying  the  papers  prepared  for  suits  in  which 
he  was  counsel.  During  the  time  I  remained  in  his  office  I  do 
not  remember  his  ever  asking  me  a  question  about  any  book 
I  might  have  been  supposed  to  have  been  reading,  or  his  sug 
gesting  a  book  to  me,  or  offering  any  suggestion  looking  to 
my  improvement  as  a  student  of  law  or  in  any  other  respect. 

It  was  while  in  his  office  and  on  the  night  of  the  5th  of 
December,  1835,  that  the  great  fire  occurred  which  burned  the 
Exchange  and  a  mile  square,  more  or  less,  of  property  in  the 
lower  part  of  the  city.  I  was  present  in  Wall  Street  while  the 
Exchange  was  burning  and  had  an  opportunity  of  realizing 
what  a  remorseless  and  insatiable  monster  Fire  may  become. 
It  was  one  of  the  coldest  nights  I  ever  experienced.  The  water 
froze  in  the  hose  and  pipes  almost  as  soon  as  it  entered  them. 
As  a  consequence,  there  was  no  weapon  left  with  which  to 


40         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

fight  the  conflagration  but  powder.  Numbers  of  stores  were 
blown  up  to  obstruct  the  spread  of  the  flames.  The  suits  sub 
sequently  brought  against  the  city  for  the  damage  resulting 
from  the  destruction  of  these  stores  and  warehouses  was  des 
tined  to  furnish  me  with  a  very  considerable  proportion  of  my 
office  work  while  a  student,  in  copying  the  complaints  and  an 
swers  and  testimony  in  that  litigation. 

The  part  of  the  city  devastated  by  that  fire  was  the  center 
of  the  wholesale  dry-goods  trade  in  New  York,  which  then  left 
it  and  found  a  temporary  when  not  a  permanent  home  in  Cort- 
landt  and  adjacent  streets  on  the  west  side  of  Broadway. 

The  night  was  so  very  cold  that  I  could  not  stay  long  to 
witness  the  spectacle,  sublime  as  it  was,  for  fear  of  being 
frozen,  as  I  certainly  should  have  been,  I  think,  had  I  remained 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  longer. 

In  the  spring  of  1836  I  left  the  office  of  Dey  &  Bonney  for 
a  provocation  which  would  hardly  have  been  deemed  sufficient 
later  in  life.  I  wished  to  change  my  boarding-place ;  to  do  so 
it  would  be  necessary  for  me  to  pay  for  two  or  three  weeks' 
board  that  was  in  arrears.  Not  wishing  to  wait  until  I  could 
write  home  and  get  a  remittance,  which  would  have  involved 
a  delay  of  three  or  four  days,  I  told  my  situation  to  Mr.  Bon 
ney  and  asked  him  if  he  could  let  me  have  the  money,  a  matter 
of  fifteen  dollars.  He  said  me  nay,  pretended  he  had  n't  got  it. 
I  felt  so  insulted  by  his  refusal  that  I  immediately  looked 
around  for  another  office.  I  earned  for  him  as  a  copyist,  every 
week  I  was  with  him,  nearly  if  not  quite  what  I  asked  of  him 
as  a  loan,  and  I  got  nothing  whatever  from  him  in  return  but 
practice  in  writing. 

I  had  no  acquaintances  when  I  went  to  New  York  and  no 
one  to  consult  with.  I  literally  felt  my  way  along  as  best  I 
could,  and  finally  drifted  to  the  office  of  Eobert  and  Theodore 
Sedgwick,  where  I  finished  my  studies  and  took  my  degree  as 
attorney  at  law  a  few  months  before  I  had  attained  the  legal 
age  of  twenty-one.  Our  examination  for  admission  was  held 
at  Albany.  It  was  usual  in  those  days  for  the  class  to  give  a 
supper  to  the  examiners  at  the  hotel.  It  was  at  this  supper 
that  some  one  had  given  a  very  loyal  toast  to  ' '  George  Wash 
ington,  the  Father  of  his  Country."  Immediately  after  this 
toast  was  drunk,  John  Van  Buren,  who  had  been  one  of  the 
examiners,  evoked  shouts  of  laughter  by  rising  and  proposing 


THE   COLUMN  41 

the  health  of  Martha  Washington,  the  Mother  of  her  Country. 

It  was  during  the  last  year  of  my  studies,  and  in  the  trial 
of  one  of  the  suits  against  the  city  for  blowing  up  warehouses 
in  the  fire  of  1835,  that  Mr.  Eobert  Sedgwick,  the  senior  mem 
ber  of  our  firm,  was  stricken  with  apoplexy  and  carried  home, 
never  to  reappear  in  court  or  his  office.  I  had  left  the  court 
room  only  a  few  minutes  before  this  melancholy  termination 
of  a  brilliant  professional  career. 

While  yet  a  student  I  had  made  an  acquaintance  which  was 
destined  to  exert  an  important  influence  upon  my  career.  At 
the  boarding-house  where  I  was  then  stopping— it  was  in 
Grand  Street,  and  a  Mrs.  Pettingill  the  hostess— there  were 
three  or  four  graduates  of  Cambridge  University  in  our  mess. 
One  of  these  was  Charles  Eames,  who  had  graduated  at  the 
head  of  his  class.  He  was  several  years  my  senior,  and  was  quite 
the  most  accomplished  man  I  had  then  ever  met.  He  was  a 
member  of  a  club  of  young  men  in  the  habit  of  meeting  once  a 
week  for  debate  and  social  intercourse,  which  upon  his  invita 
tion  I  was  permitted  to  join.  Among  the  members  of  this 
club,  which  was  called  the  Column,  were  the  late  Edgar  S. 
Van  Winkle,  Anthony  L.  Robertson,  afterwards  Vice- Chan 
cellor,  Daniel  Seymour  and  Richard  Lawrence;  afterwards 
were  added  Parke  Godwin,  Dr.  Alonzo  Clark,  William  M. 
Evarts  and  William  M.  Prichard,  and  some  half-dozen  whose 
names  do  not  occur  to  me  now,  but  all  of  whom  were  much  my 
seniors.  We  were  in  the  habit  of  having  a  supper  once  a  month, 
and  we  had,  as  the  symbol  of  our  club,  a  silver  column  about 
two  and  a  half  feet  high,  with  a  Greek  lamp  at  its  top,  which 
was  always  lighted  at  our  monthly  symposia.  Inside  of  the 
column  was  a  compendious  history  of  it  and  a  list  of  its  mem 
bers,  with  a  copy  of  the  agreement  by  which  it  was  to  become 
the  property  of  the  surviving  member. 

As  we  severally  matured  and  became  immersed  in  more 
serious  pursuits,  we  gradually  put  away  childish  things,  and 
our  meetings  in  time  became  annuals,  and  upon  the  death  of 
Mr.  Van  Winkle,  who  was  the  archon,  or  chief  officer,  were 
finally  discontinued.  The  silver  column  was  always  kept  at 
Tiffany's,  where  it  was  fashioned. 

In  the  course  of  time  Mr.  Evarts,  Parke  Godwin  and  myself 
became  the  only  surviving  members,  Mr.  Evarts  having  suc 
ceeded  to  the  position  of  archon.  When  Mr.  Evarts 's  health 


42         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

had  become  irremediably  broken,  I  suggested  to  Mr.  Beaman, 
his  son-in-law  and  partner  in  the  law  firm  of  which  Mr.  Evarts 
had  been  the  head,  that  the  surviving  members,  of  whom  there 
were  then  but  three,  should  unite  in  presenting  the  silver  col 
umn  to  the  Century  Association,  of  which  we  were  all  mem 
bers,  and  so  avoid  some  technical  difficulties  which  might  arise 
about  proving  the  survivor's  title  to  the  column— that  is,  the 
death  of  all  the  members.  I  recommended  that  the  archon, 
who  had  the  official  control  of  the  symbol,  should  have  it 
removed  and  placed  en  depot  at  the  Century.  Mr.  Beaman 
approved  of  the  plan,  and  undertook  to  secure  Mr.  Evarts 's 
concurrence.  The  symbol,  however,  remained  in  charge  of 
the  Tiffanys  until  the  death  of  Mr.  Evarts  early  in  March, 
1901,  when  I  revived  the  scheme  I  had  formed  some  four 
years  before  to  have  the  memorial  column  presented  to  the 
Century  Association.  An  account  of  the  ceremonial  of  its 
presentation,  constituting  an  incident  in  what  promises  to  be 
the  longer  life  of  the  Century  Association,  will  be  as  oppor 
tune  here  as  anywhere. 

As  Mr.  Godwin  shared  my  opinion  that  the  Century  Associa 
tion  was  the  proper  resting-place  for  the  column  memorial,  I 
immediately  took  measures  to  have  the  transfer  made.  I 
waited  upon  the  Tiffany  Company,  where  the  memorial  had 
been  born  and  stored  from  the  time  of  its  birth ;  expressed  my 
wishes  and  what  I  knew  to  be  the  wishes  of  Mr.  Godwin,  and 
stated  to  Mr.  Kunz  (a  member  of  the  firm  and  also  a  member 
of  the  Century)  the  form  of  an  instrument  which  I  would  pre 
pare  for  the  discharge  of  his  firm  from  further  responsibility 
for  it. 

That  the  board  of  management  should  not  be  taken  by  sur 
prise  by  the  proceedings  which  I  meditated,  I  attended  their 
meeting  the  last  week  in  April  and  related  to  the  members  the 
history  of  the  memorial  and  the  circumstances  under  which 
Mr.  Godwin  and  I  had  become  its  proprietors  and  the  manner 
in  which  we  proposed  to  present  it  to  the  Century. 

Unfortunately,  I  could  not  count  upon  the  personal  co 
operation  I  had  hoped  for  from  Mr.  Godwin,  who  for  a  month 
or  more  had  been  too  ill  to  see  me  or  any  one  but  his  trained 
nurses  and  physicians.  I  sent  him  the  instruments  which  re 
quired  his  signature,  and  expressed  the  hope  that  he  would  be 
able  to  attend  and  take  part  in  the  projected  ceremonial.  His 


THE   COLUMN  PRESENTED  43 

daughter,  Miss  Nora  Godwin,  sent  back  to  me  the  instruments 
signed,  with  the  following  note  saying: 

* '  The  doctor  thinks  that  Father  had  better  not  take  part  in 
anything— so  Father  bids  me  tell  you  to  go  on  with  your  pro 
ceedings  as  you  think  best  on  the  fourth  of  May,  and  he  will  be 
present  as  a  listener  if  he  feels  equal  to  it. ' ' 

Mr.  Godwin's  absence  was  a  disappointment  to  me,  because  I 
had  proposed,  during  the  evening  of  the  next  regular  monthly 
meeting  of  the  Century,  to  ask  the  president  to  suspend  its 
deliberations  for  a  half -hour,  then  and  there  to  hold  a  meeting 
of  the  Column  and  go  through  the  form  of  adopting  the  reso 
lutions  which  I  had  prepared.  In  his  absence,  however,  I 
concluded  to  have  the  resolutions  purport  to  have  been  adopted 
at  a  meeting  of  the  Column  held  at  Mr.  Godwin's  house,  and 
to  have  them  signed  by  both  the  surviving  members. 

At  the  monthly  meeting  of  the  Century  Association,  on 
Saturday,  the  4th  of  May,  after  the  routine  business  had  been 
disposed  of,  I  rose  and  requested  the  president's,  the  late 
Bishop  Potter's,  permission  to  make  a  special  communication 
which  I  hoped  would  prove  of  sufficient  interest  to  warrant  me 
in  detaining  the  members  a  few  moments  longer  to  hear  it.  I 
then  stated  briefly  the  origin  and  history  of  the  Column,  its 
organic  relations  to  the  Century  by  virtue  of  so  many  of  its 
members  having  been  founders  of  the  Century,  also  the  his 
tory  of  the  silver  memorial,  which  I  had  procured  to  have 
placed  on  the  president's  table,  with  its  Greek  lamp  luminous 
from  its  summit ;  how  Mr.  Godwin  and  I  had  become  its  pro 
prietors,  and  how,  by  the  concurrence  of  Mr.  Godwin,  I  was 
able  to  ask  its  acceptance  by  the  Century.  I  then  proceeded 
to  read  the  following  report  of  what  purported  to  be  a  meeting 
of  the  Column  held  at  Mr.  Godwin 's  residence : 

WHEREAS,  we  the  subscribers,  John  Bigelow  and  Parke  Godwin,  mem 
bers  of  the  Century  Association,  are  also  the  only  surviving  members 
of  a  club  called  the  Column,  founded  in  1825,  into  which  the  said 
John  Bigelow  was  elected  a  member  in  1838  and  the  said  Parke  God 
win  was  elected  a  member  in  1841 ; 

WHEREAS,  at  a  meeting  of  the  said  Column  held  in  the  year  1857,  the 
Messrs.  Tiffany,  now  known  as  the  Tiffany  Company,  were  invited  to 
execute  and  did  execute  a  silver  symbol  intended  to  be  a  lasting 
memorial  of  the  Column  and  to  be  placed  before  the  members  at  all 


44         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

their  future  meetings,  and  which  was  first  exhibited  at  the  thirty-sec 
ond  anniversary  dinner  of  the  Column  given  at  the  Astor  House  on  the 
twenty-ninth  day  of  January,  1858 ; 

WHEREAS,  upon  such  symbol  by  order  of  the  Column  were  inscribed 
the  words  following,  that  is  to  say : 

1858 

THIS 

MEMORIAL 

THE  PROPERTY  OF 

THE  COLUMN 

WILL  BELONG  TO  THE 

SURVIVOR  OF  THE  MEMBERS 

WHOSE  NAMES  ARE 
HEREON   INSCRIBED. 

THE  COLUMN 

4TH  AUGUST,    MDCCCXXVI. 


WHEREAS,  of  the  members  of  the  Column,  all  of  whose  names  are  in 
scribed  on  this  memorial,  Parke  Godwin  and  John  Bigelow  are  at 
present  the  only  survivors  and  have,  by  virtue  of  their  survivorship, 
become  the  sole  proprietors  of  said  memorial,  therefore 

EESOLVED,  That  the  aforesaid  Tiffany  Company  be  and  the  same  are 
hereby  requested  to  deliver  the  said  silver  memorial  to  the  Presiding 
Officer  of  the  Century  or  such  officer  of  the  Century  as  he  may  desig 
nate,  and  that  a  receipt  therefor  by  the  Presiding  Officer  and  Secre 
tary  of  the  Century  shall  be  a  full  acquittance  and  discharge  of  said 
Tiffany  Company  from  any  further  responsibility  to  the  Column  or 
its  officers  for  the  said  memorial  forever. 


(Signed)  JOHN   BIGELOW  )Only  surviving  Members 

PABKE  GODWIN  j       of  the  column. 


The  reading  of  these  resolutions  was  followed  by  more  ap 
plause,  I  believe,  than  had  ever  been  heard  on  any  occasion 
before  within  the  walls  of  the  Century.  When  it  subsided  I 
proceeded  to  read  the  following  report  of  what  purported  to 
be  the  proceedings  of  another  meeting  of  the  Column  held  at 
the  same  place  as  the  preceding  and  on  the  same  day: 


THE  COLUMN  AND  THE  CENTURY       45 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Column  held  at  No.  19  East  37th  Street  in  the 
City  of  Manhattan,  the  following  resolutions  were  unanimously 
adopted : 


RESOLVED,  That  all  the  present  and  future  members  of  the  Century 
Association  are  hereby  declared  to  be  or  shall  upon  their  election  to 
the  Century  Association  become  members  of  the  Column. 

II 

RESOLVED,  That  the  officers  of  the  Century  and  their  successors  are 
hereby  declared  to  be  the  permanent  and  only  officers  of  the  Column. 

Ill 

RESOLVED,  That  the  silver  memorial  of  the  Column  on  which  are  in 
scribed  the  names  of  all  its  members,  executed  by  the  Tiffany  Com 
pany  in  1857-8  and  now  the  property  of  Parke  Godwin  and  John 
Bigelow,  the  only  surviving  members  of  the  Column,  be,  and  the  same 
is  hereby  confided  to  the  custody  and  charge  of  the  Board  of  Manage 
ment  of  the  Century,  or  to  such  officer  or  officers  as  that  Board  may 
appoint;  and  that  said  memorial  of  the  Column  shall  ultimately  be 
come  the  property  of  the  last  surviving  resident  member  of  the 
Century  Association. 

IV 

RESOLVED,  That  the  Column  gratefully  recognizes  its  obligations  to 
the  Tiffany  Company  for  their  generous  care  of  this  memorial  for 
more  than  thirty  years  past,  and  for  its  production  at  the  several 
meetings  of  the  Column  held  during  that  period. 

V 

RESOLVED,  The  Column  do  now  adjourn  sine  die. 

(Signed)         JOHN  BIGELOW  )oniyiurrivor»of 
(Signed)        PARKE  GODWIN)    the  column. 


The  applause  which  followed  the  reading  of  these  resolu 
tions  superseded  the  necessity  for  any  further  remarks  from 
me.  The  president,  Bishop  Potter,  made  some  very  felicitous 
remarks  on  behalf  of  the  Century  in  accepting  the  memorial, 


46         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

and  upon  his  suggestion,  I  think  it  was,  the  subject  was  re 
ferred  to  the  executive  committee  to  properly  acknowledge  it, 
which  was  done  in  the  year-book  of  the  Century  for  1901. 

The  following  is  a  complete  list  of 

THE  COLUMN  MEMBEESHIP 

Name  Admitted  Died 

Jonathan  Lawrence,  Jr 1825  1833 

Alexander  S.  Leonard 1825  1878 

Thomas  H.  Lyell        1825  1855 

Anthony  L.  Robertson 1825  1868 

Robert  Kelly 1825  1856 

H.  W.  Havens 1826  1874 

Oliver  S.  Strong 1826  1874 

Wm.  A.  Lawrence 1826  1844 

John  Keese       1826  1854 

Daniel  Seymour 1826  1850 

Edgar  S.  Van  Winkle 1826  1882 

Fredk.  G.  Foster        1826  1879 

Ogden  Haggarty 1826  1875 

Geo.  E.  Hoffman 1826  1826 

Chas.  G.  Havens 1826  1888 

Jas.  M.  Cummings 1826  1834 

John  Kosencrantz 1826  1883 

D.  Carrington  Taylor 1827  1868 

Jonas  Butler 1827  1856 

John  B.  Finlay 1828  1869 

Thos.  H.  Merry,  Jr 1828  1850 

Barzillai   Slosson 1828  1874 

Jno.  H.  Gourlie 1830  1887 

Richard  Lawrence 1830  1881 

B.  Franklin  Miller 1830  1837 

Cornelius  Dubois,  Jr 1831  1882 

Geo.  B.  Butler 1831  1886 

Alfred  W.  Craven 1831  1879 

Jonathan  Nathan 1831  1853 

Cornelius  H.  Bryson 1833  1844 

Augustus  Schell 1834  1884 

Alex.  R.  Wyckoff       1835  1849 

Sylvanus  Miller,  Jr. 1836  1874 

Chas.  Eames 1837  1867 

John  Bigelow 1838 

Wm.  M.  Prichard               1838  1897 


HOMCEOPATHY  IN  NEW  YORK  47 

THE  COLUMN  MEMBERSHIP— CONTINUED 
Name  Admitted  Died 

Wm.  M.  Evarts 1840  1901 

Alonzo  Clark 1840  1887 

Parke  Godwin 1841  1904 

Henry  C.  Deming 1841  1872 

Cambridge  Livingston 1842  1879 

Chas.  W.  Foster 1842  1865 

Chas.  E.  Butler 1842  1897 

Chas.  M.  Leupp 1843  1858 

Wm.  T.  Whittemore      . 1843  1891 

Wm.  Bayley 1844  1857 

Edward  Pierson 1844  1878 

Melancthon  L.  Seymour 1844  1865 

I  little  dreamed  when  I  entered  the  Column  I  should  survive 
all  its  other  members. 

Mr.  Eames  and  I  did  not  remain  long  the  guests  of  Mrs. 
Pettingill.  We  took  rooms  together  with  a  physician  residing 
on  the  northwest  corner  of  Broadway  and  Chambers  Street, 
and  from  that  time  until  Eames 's  marriage,  some  three  or 
four  years  later,  we  always  lived  together.  This  companion 
ship  had  many  great  advantages  for  me,  for  reasons  which  I 
have  already  stated ;  but  it  also  had  some  pretty  serious  draw 
backs.  The  only  two  worth  mentioning  here  were,  first,  that 
he  was  the  victim  of  an  obstinate  asthma  which  compelled  him 
to  fill  the  rooms  pretty  much  every  night  with  the  smoke  of 
burning  nitre-paper.  The  other  was  what  Jefferson  attributed 
to  Lafayette— "a  canine  appetite  for  praise." 

While  I  was  at  Washington  College,  I  had  a  roommate,  an 
excellent  fellow  and  good  scholar,  seven  or  eight  years  my 
senior,  who  was  a  victim  of  the  same  appetite.  I  speak  of  it  as 
a  drawback,  and  yet  I  don't  know  how  much  I  owe  to  the  in 
fluence  of  this  weakness  in  them,  for  its  discouragement,  so 
far  as  it  may  have  proved  a  discouragement,  of  any  exhibition 
of  such  a  taste  in  myself.  I  dare  say  I  should  be  mortified  to 
learn  how  much  of  a  discouragement  it  had  proved,  but  yet 
more  to  learn  how  much  of  the  same  weakness  had  survived 
this  discouragement. 

Upon  reflection  I  must  withdraw  what  I  have  said  about  my 
friend's  asthma  proving  a  drawback  or  a  matter  of  regret  to 
me,  for  it  was  really  to  this  infirmity  of  his  that  I  owe  my 


48         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

introduction  to  the  study  of  homoeopathy  and  my  obligations 
to  the  ministry  of  that  professional  faith  in  my  family  up  to 
the  present  time— obligations  which  every  day's  experience  of 
what  is  going  on  around  me  has  steadily  increased. 

Mr.  Eames,  finding  that  what  were  then  called  the  regular 
faculty  had  failed  to  accomplish  anything  substantially  to 
ameliorate  his  condition,  had  finally  fallen  into  the  habit  of  con 
sulting  with  Drs.  Hull  &  Gray,  who  in  those  days  were  quite  the 
leading  physicians  of  the  Hahnemannian  therapeutical  system, 
which  had  then  been  but  recently  introduced  into  our  city. 

I  am  aware  of  but  one  other  homoeopathic  physician  then  in 
practice  in  New  York.  His  name  was  Channing,  and  he  was  a 
relation  of  the  eminent  Unitarian  clergyman  of  that  name  in 
Boston.  I  used  occasionally  to  accompany  Mr.  Eames  when  he 
went  to  consult  with  these  physicians,  for  he  consulted  with 
all,  and  in  the  course  of  these  visits  I  heard  the  principles  of 
homoeopathy  pretty  thoroughly  and  ably  discussed.  I  had  no 
special  interest  in  the  matter  at  the  time;  but  I  remember  to 
have  been  much  impressed  with  their  statement  of  the  objec 
tions  to  the  use  of  the  lancet,  cathartics,  and  indeed  to  most 
of  the  so-called  medications  then  in  general  use  by  the  regular 
faculty,  so  many  of  which  have  since,  I  hear,  been  pretty  much 
abandoned  or  exchanged  for  others,  whether  for  the  advantage 
of  the  sick  or  not  I  am  not  perhaps  a  competent  judge.  As  I 
regard  this  as  a  very  important  event  in  my  life,  important  to 
my  family  and  many  friends  as  well  as  to  myself,  I  will  here 
anticipate  a  little  the  course  of  events  to  explain  how  to  some 
extent  my  faith  in  the  Hahnemannian  philosophy  became 
strengthened  and  confirmed. 

Not  long  after  opening  my  office  with  Van  Winkle,  and  while 
Eames  and  I  occupied  rooms  with  Professor  and  Mrs.  Hempel 
in  what  was  then  called  Amity  Street,  I,  for  the  first  time  since 
my  arrival  in  New  York,  felt  the  need  of  medical  advice.  I 
left  my  office  at  a  rather  earlier  hour  than  usual  in  the  after 
noon  of  a  bitter  November  day,  and  as  I  came  into  Broadway 
I  met  Ogden  Haggarty,  who  was  a  fellow-member  of  the  Col 
umn.  In  reply  to  his  inquiries  I  told  him  I  was  not  feeling 
very  well  and  was  going  home.  He  recommended  me  to  stop 
in  at  a  certain  house  in  Cortlandt  Street,  of  which  he  gave  me 
name  and  number,  and  take  a  steam  bath,  which  was  his  fa 
vorite  remedy  for  all  his  troubles  and  which  he  had  found  to  be 


INTERESTING  EXPERIENCE   OF  HOMOEOPATHY     49 

a  very  effective  one.  People  who  have  given  little  or  no 
thought  to  their  health,  which  is  the  case  with  most  young  men, 
are  apt  when  ill  to  take  the  first  advice  that  is  offered  them. 
I  took  Haggarty's,  and  in  a  few  minutes  found  myself  in  a  box 
enveloped  in  steam,  where  I  sat  from  a  quarter  to  half  an  hour. 
I  was  led  to  expect  that  before  that  time  I  would  be  in  a 
profuse  perspiration.  Nothing  of  the  kind  happened.  I  was 
very  hot,  but  I  did  not  perspire.  I  then  left  the  bath  and 
walked  home,  a  little  over  a  mile.  The  weather,  as  I  have  said, 
was  bitterly  cold ;  the  wind  in  the  southeast.  The  heating  I  had 
received  had  prepared  me  admirably  for  what  followed.  Long 
before  I  reached  home  I  was  racked  with  pain  in  all  my  limbs, 
but  mostly  in  the  knee  of  my  right  leg,  which  caused  every  step 
I  took  to  give  me  a  pang.  I  went  straight  to  bed.  The  kind  of 
night  I  passed  is  not  difficult  to  imagine— an  acute  rheuma 
tism  which  seemed  to  increase  with  every  breath  I  drew,  and  a 
swelling  of  the  knee  which  made  any  motion  of  the  leg  agony. 
I  groaned  aloud  in  spite  of  every  effort  to  control  myself. 

At  this  time  Mr.  Eames  and  I  were  members  of  a  mess  which 
we  had  organized  in  the  house,  forming  a  part  of  the  uni 
versity  which  had  been  occupied  by  Professor  da  Ponte,  from 
whom  we  had  formerly  leased  a  floor,  which  we  occupied  until 
the  professor's  death.  Besides  ourselves  in  this  mess  was  Dr. 
Alonzo  Clark,  who  was  already  giving  promise  of  the  eminence 
which  he  subsequently  attained  in  his  profession;  a  Mr. 
Dwight,  who  afterwards  married  a  daughter  of  Benjamin  F. 
Butler;  Daniel  E.  Sickles,  who  subsequently  acquired  various 
kinds  of  distinction;  and  one  or  two  others  whose  names  I 
do  not  recall.  When  Mr.  Eames  went  to  his  breakfast  he 
mentioned  my  illness  to  Dr.  Clark,  who  was  kind  enough  to 
come  around  promptly  to  see  me.  He  examined  my  swollen 
knee,  said  I  must  have  leeches  put  on  or  have  it  cupped  at  once, 
and  I  must  send  for  my  physician  to  give  me  some  medicine. 
In  spite  of  my  pain  I  was  amused  at  the  suggestion  that  I 
should  send  for  my  physician,  having  never  had  any  physician 
near  me  except  to  vaccinate  me  when  a  child.  Where  to  get 
leeches  and  cups  I  knew  not,  nor  had  I  any  servant  to  send  if  I 
did ;  but  when  I  found  leeching  and  cupping  the  main  thing  the 
good  doctor  relied  upon  as  my  remedy,  I  bethought  me  of  the 
discussion  I  had  heard  at  Hull  &  Gray's  office  about  the  evils 
of  bleeding  and  reducing  the  patient  thereby;  and  I  was  hap- 


50         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

pily  inspired  to  ask  Mr.  Eames,  as  he  was  going  out  to  his 
work  in  the  morning,  to  stop  and  ask  Dr.  Hull  to  come  and  see 
me.  About  half  an  hour  later  the  doctor  was  by  my  bedside. 
I  showed  him  my  exaggerated  knee,  and  told  him  of  the  visit 
and  advice  I  had  received  from  my  friend  Dr.  Clark. 

"Oh,"  he  said,  "you  don't  want  any  cupping  or  leeching. 
I  '11  fix  you  up  very  shortly."  Thereupon  he  took  out  of  a 
little  box  some  of  the  small  artillery  of  his  school,  mixed  it  in 
a  little  water,  and  gave  me  instructions  to  take  a  teaspoonful 
every  quarter  of  an  hour  until  it  was  all  taken  or  I  felt  better. 
I  followed  his  instructions.  By  noon  I  was  comfortable  when 
perfectly  quiet.  By  dinner-time  I  was  in  fine  spirits.  When 
Dr.  Clark  called  in  the  afternoon  to  see  how  I  was,  I  told  him 
that  I  was  in  the  condition  of  Mother  Hubbard's  dog  when  she 
returned  from  the  purchase  of  his  coffin;  that  I  had  had  no 
leeches  nor  cupping,  and  that  I  had  been  drinking  a  little  water 
which  had  no  taste  that  I  could  detect,  but  which  had  acted 
upon  me  like  a  charm.  When  I  told  him  who  had  ministered 
unto  me,  "Oh,"  he  said,  "you  'd  have  got  well  anyway." 

While  on  this  subject  I  cannot  expect  a  fitter  opportunity  of 
giving  another  experience  which  assisted  in  making  the  doc 
trine  of  similia  similibus  the  law  of  my  household.  The  lady 
who  some  eight  or  ten  years  later  did  me  the  honor  to  become 
my  wife  was  afflicted  by  a  swelling  of  her  neck  which  threat 
ened  to  seriously  deform  her.  Her  mother  was,  of  course, 
very  anxious  about  it.  Her  daughter  had  been  in  charge  of  an 
English  physician  whose  popularity  was  based  chiefly  upon 
the  fact  that  he  was  understood  to  be  the  medical  adviser  of  the 
British  consulate,  which  was  enough  in  those  days  to  make  a 
blacksmith  fashionable  in  New  York.  He  had  been  treating 
Miss  Poultney's  trouble  about  three  years— judging  by  the 
results,  it  would  be  perhaps  more  correct  to  say  he  had  been 
cultivating  her  malady  for  that  period;  for  it  had  steadily  in 
creased,  and  his  bills,  which  were  large  for  those  days,  were  a 
serious  tax  upon  the  household  exchequer.  I  had  by  this  time 
learned  enough  of  the  medical  systems  in  vogue  to  be  satisfied 
that  the  school  to  which  this  physician  belonged  could  not  deal 
effectively  with  chronic  disease  of  any  kind.  I  so  advised,  and 
succeeded  in  persuading  Mrs.  Poultney  to  consult  a  homoeo 
pathic  physician.  Fortunately  she  knew  personally  and  inti 
mately  the  family  of  the  Bayards,  one  of  whom  had  by  this 


HALLECK  AND  BKYANT  51 

time  become  established  in  a  good  practice  in  New  York.  This 
was  Edward  Bayard,  an  uncle  of  Thomas  Bayard,  who  after 
wards  became  Secretary  of  State  in  the  Cabinet  of  President 
Cleveland.  She  decided  to  go  with  her  daughter  and  consult 
him  at  once.  The  result  was  that  in  a  few  weeks  the  swelling 
began  to  subside,  and  in  less  than  a  year  had  entirely  disap 
peared.  I  need  hardly  add  that  after  Miss  Poultney  became 
my  wife  there  was  happily  never  any  question  between  us 
about  the  kind  of  doctors  or  the  system  of  therapeutics  we 
should  cultivate. 

How  feeble  is  our  faculty  of  estimating  the  relative  impor 
tance  of  the  events  of  our  lives— of  the  links  in  the  chain  of 
human  existence !  How  little  I  dreamed  of  the  consequences 
that  were  to  follow  my  occasional  and  altogether  casual  visits 
with  Mr.  Eames  on  his  consultations  with  Dr.  Hull!  But  for 
those  visits  it  is  more  than  likely  that  I  should  never  have 
heard  homoeopathy  spoken  of  except  in  words  of  derision ;  and 
yet  I  should  find  it  difficult  to  name  many  events  in  my  life 
which  were  destined  to  contribute  more  to  my  domestic  happi 
ness  and  personal  comfort,  to  say  nothing  of  my  longevity, 
than  the  circumstances  which  first  led  even  to  my  limited  ac 
quaintance  with  the  principles  of  homoeopathy. 

There  were  a  few  events  in  my  career  as  a  law  student 
which  to  some  extent  relieved  its  dreary  monotony.  One  of 
the  earliest  was  my  first  acquaintance  with  Fitz-Greene  Hal- 
leek  and  William  Cullen  Bryant.  While  I  was  residing  at  a 
boarding-house  in  Warren  Street,  one  of  my  friends,  Charles 
Stuart,  a  graduate  of  Harvard  University  (the  Encyclopaedia, 
as  we  called  him,  because  he  seemed  to  know  everything  but 
what  to  do  with  anything),  told  me  that  Halleck  was  in-  the 
habit  of  frequenting  a  cafe  kept  by  a  Frenchman  in  Warren 
Street,  near  Broadway,  and  that  he  might  usually  be  found 
there  between  seven  and  eight  o  'clock  in  the  evening  taking  his 
"coffee,"  which  was  usually  brandy  and  water.  He  added 
further  that  he  knew  Halleck,  and  would  be  happy  to  take  me 
there  some  evening  and  introduce  me  to  him.  I  gladly  availed 
myself  of  the  privilege.  Halleck  received  me  very  kindly  and 
was  amiable  enough  to  devote  his  conversation  almost  exclu 
sively  to  me  whenever  I  indulged  myself  in  a  visit  to  his  corner, 
which  was  not  as  frequently  as  I  should  have  liked,  for  I  could 
ill  afford  the  expense,  and  fortunately  I  had  no  tastes  depend- 


52         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

ing  upon  a  cafe  for  their  gratification.  The  acquaintance  thus 
formed  I  am  happy  in  believing  had  ripened  into  friendship 
before  Mr.  Halleck's  death.  Of  his  conversation  the  feature 
that  left  the  most  distinct  impression  upon  my  mind  was  a 
fondness  for  paradox  and  for  the  utterance  of  unfashionable 
doctrines.  How  much  of  this  was  conviction  with  him  and 
how  much  to  amuse  himself  with  my  earnestness  of  nature,  I 
was  never  quite  sure.  Whatever  his  motive,  I  was  rather 
beholden  to  him  for  his  extravagant  notions,  for  they  gave  me 
a  confidence  in  maintaining  my  own  views  which  I  should  not 
have  had  without  some  such  mirage  to  lessen  the  apparent 
distance  which  separated  us. 

Another  event  which  left  a  permanent  impression  on  my 
memory  was  an  incident  which  occurred  in  Niblo's  Saloon 
during  an  address  of  Daniel  Webster  on  the  15th  of  March, 
1837.  He  had  threatened  to  resign  his  seat  in  the  Senate, 
which  wajs  immediately  followed  by  a  call  from  some  of  his 
admirers  in  New  York  to  give  him  a  reception,  which  resulted 
in  his  delivering  an  address  on  the  condition  of  the  country. 
Webster  at  that  time  had  the  reputation,  in  the  Northern 
States  at  least,  of  being  the  greatest  orator  and  the  best  con 
stitutional  lawyer  in  the  United  States.  As  I  had  declaimed 
the  concluding  paragraph  of  his  speech  against  Hayne  in 
college,  I  had  a  natural  desire  to  see  how  a  speech  of  his  would 
sound  from  his  own  lips.  The  hall  was  crowded,  of  course,  to 
overflowing.  A  stove  of  President  Nott's  device  was  still 
standing  in 'the  saloon  at  the  end  most  remote  from  the  platform 
of  the  speaker,  without  pipes,  evidently  awaiting  a  convenient 
opportunity  for  its  removal.  I  was  standing  not  far  from  the 
stove,  unable  to  get  nearer  the  speaker  because  of  the  crowd. 
In  the  middle  of  his  discourse  some  boys,  who  had  climbed 
upon  the  stove  for  a  better  view  or  hearing  of  the  speaker, 
upset  it  or  did  something  making  a  noise  which  created  the  im 
pression  that  the  building  was  giving  way.  In  the  panic  which 
followed  I  found  myself  irresistibly  swept  up  within  ten  or 
fifteen  feet  of  the  orator,  and  just  in  time  to  see  him  raise  his 
hand  with  a  gesture  invoking  quiet.  Then  I  heard  him  say, 
"  Nothing  has  broken,  my  friends,  but  your  patience  and  the 
thread  of  my  argument/'  The  presence  of  mind  exhibited  in 
this  remark  restored  quiet  to  the  audience  immediately,  and  he 
proceeded  with  his  discourse. 


NOTABLE  SPEECH  OF  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS      53 

In  the  republication  of  his  speeches  this  incident  is  not 
noticed,  nor  do  I  think  any  note  was  made  of  it  by  the  press. 
Probably  but  a  small  portion  of  the  audience  nearest  the  plat 
form  heard  his  remark. 

Still  a  third  incident  which  lingers  in  my  memory  occurred 
some  two  years  later,  when  John  Quincy  Adams,  then  the  first 
and  only  ex-President  who  had  accepted  a  seat  in  the  lower 
house  of  Congress,  was  invited  by  the  New  York  Historical 
Society  to  address  them  on  the  occasion  of  the  Jubilee  of  the 
inauguration  of  General  Washington  as  first  President  of  the 
United  States.  The  feature  of  his  discourse  that  impressed 
me  most,  and  the  only  one  that  I  remember  still,  was  the  use 
he  made  of  the  promised  blessings  from  Mount  Gerizim  to  the 
children  of  Israel  if  they  obeyed  the  instructions  which  the 
Lord  had  instructed  Moses  to  give  them,  and  the  curses  from 
Mount  Ebal  if  they  failed  to  obey  those  instructions,  as  they 
were  recorded  in  the  twenty- seventh  chapter  of  the  Book  of 
Deuteronomy.  His  narrative  of  what  might  be  called  his  text, 
and  his  application  of  it  to  our  nation  at  the  time  when  he, 
almost  single-handed  in  Congress,  was  fighting  the  battle  of 
freedom  against  slavery,  proved  to  me  quite  the  most  effective 
and  impressive  speech  I  have  ever  heard,  and  altogether  be 
cause  of  his  application  of  his  text  to  the  situation ;  for  though 
the  most  of  a  scholar  and  the  most  broadly  educated  man  that 
has  ever  thus  far  been  elected  to  the  Presidency  of  the  United 
States,  he  was  not  an  eloquent  speaker  either  as  Webster  or 
Everett  was,  but  held  the  attention  of  all  the  people  the  church 
could  hold  for  two  full  hours,  and  it  never  occurred  to  me  to 
think  that  in  the  length  of  his  discourse  he  had  abused  the 
hospitality  of  his  hosts. 

I  first  saw  Mr.  Bryant,  with  whose  fortunes  my  own  were 
destined  at  a  later  day  to  be  more  intimately  linked,  while  a 
student  in  the  office  of  the  Sedgwicks.  When  Bryant  first  came 
to  New  York,  he  was  in  a  sense  consigned  to  the  Sedgwick  fam* 
ily.  I  do  not  remember  that  I  was  formally  presented  to  him 
at  that  time,  but  it  was  then  and  there  that  our  acquaintance 
germinated,  I  little  suspecting  how  large  a  factor  in  my  future 
life  my  relations  with  him  were  destined  to  become. 

I  will  here  note  a  habit  to  which  I  have  always  been  addicted, 
though  I  do  not  remember  to  have  ever  done  anything  delib 
erately  to  contract  it,  nor  to  have  been  conscious  of  it  at 


54         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

the  time  I  was  contracting  it  or  acting  under  its  influence.  I 
refer  to  an  inclination  from  my  early  youth  for  the  society  of 
persons  who  were  incontestably  my  superiors.  At  school,  at 
college,  and  indeed  throughout  my  life,  my  most  familiar  and 
cherished  associates  were  persons  whom  for  some  reason  or 
other  I  could  look  up  to  without  any  lack  of  self-respect.  All 
my  roommates  at  college  and  subsequently  until  my  marriage 
were  several  years  my  seniors.  Lord  Clarendon  used  to  say 
that  he  ' '  never  was  so  content  with  himself  as  when  he  found 
himself  the  meanest  man  in  the  company."1  In  looking  back 
upon  my  past  life,  I  have  been  frequently  impressed'  with  a 
sense  of  my  obligations  to  the  superior  standards  by  which  I 
had  from  time  to  time  the  privilege  of  gauging  my  conduct. 
For  full  twenty  years  after  my  daily  intercourse  with  Mr. 
Bryant  terminated  by  my  retirement  from  the  Evening  Post 
and  absence  from  the  country,  I  would  find  myself  frequently 
testing  things  I  had  done  or  proposed  to  do  by  asking  myself, 
How  would  Mr.  Bryant  act  under  similar  circumstances?  I 
rarely  applied  this  test  without  receiving  a  clear  and  satis 
factory  answer.  The  influence  which  Mr.  Bryant  exerted  over 
me  by  his  example — he  never  gave  advice— satisfies  me  that 
every  one  undervalues  the  importance  of  his  own  example.  In 
ordering  our  own  lives,  we  are  unconsciously  ordering  the 
lives  of  everybody  else;  for  a  wave  of  influence  once  projected 
by  us  never  sleeps  even  when  it  has  washed  every  shore. 

Mr.  Eames  depended  for  his  livelihood  entirely  upon  what 
he  received  as  a  lecturer  in  young  ladies'  schools.  Upon  the 
death  of  Professor  da  Ponte  he  was  engaged  to  give  a  weekly 
lecture  at  the  seminary  which  Mme.  Chegary  had  then  recently 
established  at  Madison,  near  Morristown,  in  New  Jersey.  His 
health,  however,  was  so  precarious,  and  he  was  habitually  so 
negligent  of  his  appointments,  that  Mme.  Chegary  found  it 
necessary  to  engage  some  person  to  fill  his  place  who  could 
reside  near  the  school  and  devote  to  it  all  his  time ;  and  upon 
Eames 's  recommendation  I  was  invited  to  take  the  position  at 
a  salary  of  $500  a  year  and  my  board  in  the  house  of  a  niece  of 
Mme.  Chegary  residing  in  the  neighborhood  of  her  school. 

As  I  had  just  been  admitted  to  the  bar,  had  no  business  ac 
quaintances  nor  clients  to  look  after,  and  as  I  was  anxious  as 

1  Life  of  Edward,  Earl  of  Clarendon,  Written  by  Himself,  Vol.  I,  p.  29. 


FIRST  ACQUAINTANCE  WITH  TILDEN  55 

far  as  possible  to  relieve  my  father  from  any  further  expense 
on  my  account,  I  promptly  accepted  the  offer.  In  looking  back 
to  that  period  now,  I  wonder  that  Mme.  Chegary  should  have 
listened  to  such  a  suggestion  from  Mr.  Eames.  I  was  only 
just  twenty-one  years  of  age.  I  had  never  taught,  and  I  was 
expected  to  teach  belles-lettres  and  history  and  other  cognate 
branches  to  young  ladies,  some  of  whom  were  nearly  as  old  as 
I  was,  and  most  of  them  in  the  class  that  was  to  graduate  the 
following  year.  However  it  may  have  proved  to  the  young 
ladies,  that  year  proved  a  very  profitable  one  to  me;  for  it 
compelled  me  to  review  many  of  my  studies  and  get  a  more 
precise  knowledge  of  many  things  than  I  had  acquired  in  my 
school-days. 

I  was  fortunate  enough  to  make  myself  entirely  acceptable 
to  the  young  ladies  of  the  school,  and  I  enjoyed  my  work  very 
much ;  but  I  dreadfully  missed  the  companionship  of  my  male 
friends  in  New  York,  and  especially  of  Mr.  Eames,  and  when 
the  year  expired  I  told  Mme.  Chegary  that  I  felt  it  my  duty  to 
return  to  New  York  and  embark  in  my  profession. 

Not  feeling  quite  prepared  to  incur  the  expense  of  an  office 
and  a  clerk  with  not  a  single  client  in  sight,  I  invited  myself  to 
take  a  desk  in  the  office  of  Edgar  H.  Van  Winkle,  one  of  the 
senior  members  of  the  Column  and  already  well  established  in 
the  profession.  He  was  kind  enough  to  say  ' i  Come, ' '  and  then 
and  there,  on  the  corner  of  Wall  Street  and  Nassau,  I  put  up 
my  first  sign  of  "John  Bigelow,  Attorney  at  Law."  The  late 
Frederick  Sheldon,  then  one  of  the  most  accomplished  young 
men  of  his  age  that  I  had  yet  met,  was  at  the  time  a  student  in 
this  office.  He  was  a  remote  connection  of  Mr.  Van  Winkle.1 

It  was  in  the  year  1837  or  1838  that  I  first  became  ac 
quainted  with  the  late  Samuel  J.  Tilden.  He  was  then  living 
with  an  aunt,  Mrs.  Barnes,  on  the  corner  of  Eighth  Street 
and  Fifth  Avenue,  at  whose  house  I  quite  accidentally  be 
came  a  boarder  for  a  time.  He  was  pursuing  or  had  just 
finished  his  studies  in  the  office  of  John  W.  Edmonds,  who 
afterwards  became  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court.  Like 
myself,  he  had  no  business  of  any  account,  but  a  plenty 
of  leisure  which  he  was  content  to  share  liberally  with  me. 
His  mind  was  already  wholly  engrossed  in  practical  poli- 

i  Both  Mr.  Sheldon  and  his  wife  died  at  their  summer  home  at  Newport  in 
the  fall  of  1907.  In  Mr.  Sheldon's  death  I  lost  one  of  my  most  valued  friends. 


56         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

tics,  of  which  I  knew  little  or  nothing.  It  became,  however,  the 
main,  I  might  say  the  sole,  topic  of  our  long  conversations 
when  we  met,  as  we  usually  did,  at  the  breakfast-table. 

I  had  read  De  Tocqueville's  "  Democracy, ' '  and  had  been 
profoundly  impressed  by  his  exposition  of  the  philosophy  of 
our  system  of  government ;  but  till  now  my  attention  had  not 
been  called  at  all  to  practical  politics,  in  which  Tilden  was  al 
ready  an  expert.  Though  I  cared  nothing  for  them,  and  he 
cared  nothing  for  my  philosophy  of  politics— for  I  already  had 
certain  philosophical  ideas  about  government— yet  we  were 
attracted  toward  each  other  rather,  as  I  now  think,  by  our  op- 
po sites  than  by  our  similarities.  Without  any  special  feeling 
of  friendship  for  him,  I  felt  great  respect  for  his  understand 
ing  and  character.  I  was  often  wearied  by  his  conversation 
about  things  which  engrossed  his  attention  but  did  not  interest 
me;  and  yet  he  knew  so  much  and  talked  so  well  about  them 
that  I  felt  that  it  was  due  to  my  ignorance  that  I  did  not  relish 
it  more.  Our  relations  grew  more  or  less  intimate,  and  ulti 
mately  ripened  into  a  cordial  friendship  which  lasted  the  rest 
of  his  life. 

On  my  return  from  Madison  I  had  rooms  with  Mr.  Eames  in 
the  wing  of  the  university  occupied  by  Professor  da  Ponte; 
and  while  here,  it  seems  to  me  now,  I  received  my  first  incen 
tive  to  write  for  the  public.  The  students  of  the  university 
were  publishing  a  magazine,  and  rather  to  my  surprise  I  re 
ceived  from  them  an  invitation  to  write  a  review  of  Bulwer's 
"  Night  and  Morning, "  then  just  published  and  which  every 
body  was  reading.  I  don't  remember  much  about  it  except 
that  I  inferred  that  the  author 's  world  was  without  a  God  and 
his  weeks  were  without  Sabbaths.  The  article  proved  highly 
acceptable  to  the  editors  of  the  magazine,  and  when  it  ap 
peared  I  knew  the  ineffable  pleasure  one  experiences  when  he 
first  sees  himself  in  print. 

The  success  of  this  article  contributed  largely  to  develop  in 
me  a  taste  which  has  never  forsaken  me ;  and  from  then  to  the 
present  time  I  do  not  think  there  has  been  a  time  when  I  had 
not  before  me  material  for  the  study  of  some  subject  which  I 
was  intending  to  write  about. 

The  first  few  years  following  my  admission  to  the  bar  I  need 
hardly  say  I  was  not  pestered  with  clients ;  but  I  was  not  idle, 
and  for  my  occupation  and  recreation  I  devoted  much  of  my 


ROMAN  LAWYERS  AND  THE  NEW  YORK  REVIEW   57 

time  to  a  study  of  the  points  of  resemblance  to  and  difference 
between  the  condition  of  lawyers  at  Rome  in  the  time  of  the 
Caesars,  and  in  New  York  in  the  time  of  President  Tyler,  for 
he  was  at  that  time  acting  President  in  consequence  of  the 
death  of  President  Harrison.  This  study  resulted  in  the  prep 
aration  of  a  tolerably  elaborate  article  to  which  I  gave  the  title 
of  "The  Profession  of  Law  at  Borne  Before  the  Empire/'  in 
which  I  aimed  to  compare  and  contrast  the  duties  of  Roman 
lawyers  with  those  of  our  own  time  and  country.  It  was  com 
piled  very  largely  from  Cicero 's  letters.  A  Review  emulating 
the  success  and  distinction  of  the  North  American  Review  and 
calling  itself  the  New  York  Review  had  been  established  in 
New  York  under  the  joint  editorship  of  Joseph  Cogswell  and 
the  Rev.  Francis  Hawks.  The  former  had  been,  with  George 
Bancroft,  the  founder  of  a  somewhat  famous  high  school  at 
Northampton,  Massachusetts,  but  had  then  taken  up  his  resi 
dence  in  New  York  and  was  a  member,  in  the  capacity  of  pri 
vate  secretary,  of  the  family  of  the  late  John  Jacob  Astor,  who 
then  lived  in  Broadway  between  Prince  and  Houston  streets, 
in  a  two-story-and-attic  house.  I  was  inspired  with  an  ambi 
tion  to  have  my  paper  appear  in  that  magazine,  and  was  en 
couraged  to  hope  for  its  acceptance  because  of  what  seemed  to 
be  the  prevailing  taste  of  its  editors  for  classic  topics.  I  then 
knew  Mr.  Cogswell  only  by  sight,  but  waited  upon  him  person 
ally  with  my  manuscript.  He  said  he  would  examine  it.  After 
some  weeks  which  to  me  seemed  an  age,  I  received  the  proof  of 
my  article,  with  a  brief  note  asking  that  I  would  promptly 
return  it.  That  day  was  a  holiday  to  me.  My  heart  immedi 
ately  began  to  beat  with  emotion  at  the  prospect  of  the  sensa 
tion  that  article  was  expected  to  produce.  It  appeared  in  the 
July  number  of  1841.  In  the  same  number  was  a  very  learned 
article  on  Demosthenes  by  Senator  Legare  of  South  Carolina. 

I  cannot  help  thinking  how  different  might  have  been  my 
career  in  this  world  had  this  article  been  rejected.  In  literary 
quality  and  scholarship  the  New  York  Review  ranked  quite  on 
a  level  with  the  North  American  Review,  which  had  been  for 
half  a  century  the  highest  literary  tribunal  in  the  country;  and 
when  I  found  a  welcome  in  its  pages,  it  gave  me  a  confidence 
in  myself  without  which  I  might  easily  have  allowed  myself  to 
be  absorbed  by  my  profession. 

This  effort  was  followed  by  another  in  theDemocraticReview. 


58         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

John  Keese,  one  of  the  wittiest  members  of  the  Column  and 
quite  the  wittiest  man  of  my  acquaintance  in  those  days,  who 
was  also  a  bookseller  and  publisher,  brought  me  a  copy  of  the 
first  edition  of  Anthon's  Classical  Dictionary,  which  had  then 
just  appeared.  He  called  my  attention  to  the  preface,  in  which 
rather  extreme  pretensions  both  to  originality  and  complete 
ness  were  made,  and  to  some  evidences  that  the  professor,  in 
the  preparation  of  his  bulky  volume,  had  used  his  scissors 
quite  as  liberally  as  his  pen.  Keese  wanted  me  "to  give  it 
fits."  His  house  was  the  publisher  of  an  edition  of  Lempriere's 
Classical  Dictionary— hence  his  tears.  I  was  none  the  less 
glad  to  befriend  him,  and  none  the  less  flattered  at  the  appli 
cation.  My  chief  business  was  to  find  fault  with  Anthon's 
book,  and  his  preface  afforded  me  ample  opportunity.  I  was 
of  an  age  when  the  combative  propensity  is  the  most  active, 
and  when  the  love  of  the  neighbor  as  one's  self  had  not 
come  very  far  toward  the  front.  I  amused  myself  in  looking 
through  all  the  classical  books  I  could  get  access  to,  for  men 
whose  names  had  been  overlooked,  and  through  modern  publi 
cations,  especially  the  London  Penny  Magazine,  from  which 
liberal  extracts  had  been  taken,  to  make  out  my  case  that  the 
book  had  not  been  rewritten,  as  was  alleged,  and  was  ever  so 
far  from  being  complete.  This  article  appeared  in  the  Demo 
cratic  Review,  but  not  without  much  debate  with  the  editor, 
Mr.  0 'Sullivan,  who  had  been  educated  at  Anthon's  Law 
School,  and  afterwards  had  been  employed  as  a  teacher  there 
at  a  time  when  such  employment  was  very  convenient  to  him. 
I  finally  yielded  so  far  as  to  allow  him  to  strike  out  some 
phrases  that  it  would  not  be  becoming  in  him  to  be  responsible 
for,  and  the  article  appeared.  To  my  surprise,  and  of  course 
greatly  to  my  delight,  in  a  week  or  two  the  professor  took  the 
field  in  his  own  defence,  and  published  an  ill-tempered  and 
not  very  judicious  reply  in  the  New  World,  then  edited  by 
Park  Benjamin — injudicious  because  he  attacked  0 'Sullivan, 
who,  when  he  graduated  at  Columbia,  had  been  employed  by 
him  as  a  tutor.  This  was  bread  for  me.  I  scuttled  about,  and 
in  the  very  next  number  of  the  Democratic  Review  I  doubled 
the  list  of  classical  notabilities  omitted  from  his  Dictionary, 
and  multiplied  the  evidences  of  scissors  eloquence.  To  this 
article  also  the  professor  replied.  There  the  incident  closed. 
The  Harpers  said  to  Keese  that  they  were  satisfied  with  the 


PROFESSORS  ANTHON  AND  FELTON  59 

result,  and  Keese  replied  that  "  bruisers  were  generally  satis 
fied  when  they  'd  got  enough. ' '  I  was  satisfied  also,  for  I  felt 
like  Ajax  after  his  contest  with  Ulysses : 

Losing,  he  wins,  because  his  name  ennobled  by  defeat  will  be 
Who  durst  contend  with  me.1 

I  cannot  boast  of  having  had  any  lively  concern  for  the 
honor  and  dignity  of  letters  in  undertaking  this  review,  in 
which  I  was  animated  rather  by  the  spirit  of  school-boys  out 
on  a  squirrel  hunt ;  and  it  is  not  without  some  satisfaction  that 
I  can  cite  two  letters  received  by  me  during  the  controversy 
from  Professor  Felton  of  Cambridge,  the  best  classical  author 
ity,  I  believe,  that  we  then  had  in  the  country,  which  warrants 
me  in  supposing  that  in  my  recklessness  as  a  literary  sports 
man  I  did  Dr.  Anthon's  Dictionary  no  injustice.  They  were 
in  reply  to  a  letter  I  addressed  to  the  professor  requesting 
him  to  do  me  the  favor  to  look  up  some  authorities  in  the 
Cambridge  library  which,  so  far  as  I  could  learn,  were  not 
to  be  found  in  any  of  our  New  York  libraries. 


PBOFESSOB  C.  C.  FELTON  TO  JOHN  BIGELOW 

CAMBEIDGE,  August  22, 1841. 
My  dear  Sir: 

I  have  just  returned  from  a  journey  to  Niagara  Falls,  and 
found  your  letter  of  the  10th  lying  on  my  table.  I  regret  that 
my  absence  from  home  has  caused  so  long  a  delay  in  answer 
ing  it ;  a  delay  which  I  fear  has  led  to  some  misapprehension 
on  your  part.  I  was  very  glad  to  hear  from  my  friend  Mr. 
Eames,  though  his  letter  was  not  necessary  to  secure  my  im 
mediate  attention  to  yours.  I  had  glanced  hastily  over  your 
review  of  Dr.  Anthon,  and  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it 
was  the  only  attempt  I  had  yet  seen  to  do  justice  to  the  work : 
but  in  the  hurry  of  leaving  home  I  had  not  had  time  to  examine 

1  Iste  tulit  pretium  jam  nunc  certaminis  hujus 
Quo  cum  victis  erit,  mecum  certasse  feretur. 

Ovid,  Met.,  liber  xiii,  v.  91. 


60         EBTROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

it,  point  by  point,  and  compare  it  with  the  reply  in  the  New 
World.  I  should  be  obliged  to  you  for  a  copy  of  each, 
which  you  intimate  in  your  letter  you  intend  to  send  me.  I 
am  sorry  I  have  not  in  my  library  a  copy  of  Schb'll's  History: 
but  there  is  one  in  the  Boston  Atheneum,  which  I  will  consult 
the  first  leisure  hour  I  have,  and  make  the  extracts  you  desire. 
At  present  my  engagements  in  the  University  are  such  that  I 
am  unable  to  go  to  town.  This  press  of  business  will  last  a 
week,  and  I  can  only  hope  that  it  will  not  then  be  too  late  for 
your  purpose.  I  think  you  ought  to  take  ample  time,  fortify 
yourself  impregnably,  and  maintain  your  position  calmly: 
doing  full  Justice  to  the  merits  of  Dr.  Anthon,  and  pointing 
out  his  defects,  without  the  slightest  fear  or  favor.  This  book 
is  a  good  one  in  some  respects,  defective  in  many:  inaccurate, 
hasty,  crude  and  careless.  The  fact  of  such  a  work  being  pre 
pared  in  two  years  is  prima  facie  evidence  against  it.  No 
human  being  can  make  it  what  it  ought  to  be  in  double  that 
time:  no,  nor  five  times  as  long.  He  has  drawn  from  all 
sources,  without  allowing  himself  sufficient  time  for  critical 
examination  of  authorities  or  for  fusing  chaotic  materials 
into  one  homogeneous  mass.  But,  as  I  am  not  reviewing  the 
Professor  myself,  I  will  make  no  further  remarks  upon  this 
head. 

If  you  think  of  any  other  book,  it  will  give  me  pleasure  to 
make  the  reference  for  you :  if  any  should  occur  to  me,  I  will 
take  the  liberty  of  mentioning  them. 

I  beg  you  to  present  my  regards  to  Mr.  Eames,  and  believe 

ie>  with  great  regard, 

Yours 


PROFESSOR  C.  a  FELTON  TO  JOHN  BIGELOW 

BOSTON,  Sept.  7, 1841. 
My  dear  Sir: 

A  week's  illness  (a  not  uncommon  occurrence  for  me)  and 
constant  occupation,  incident  to  the  beginning  of  a  college 


ANTHON'S  DICTIONARY  AND  PROF.  FELTON      61 

year,  have  prevented  my  attending  to  the  subject  of  your  let 
ter.  It  was  my  purpose  to  read  your  review  carefully,  and 
note  down  such  observations  as  might  be  suggested,  together 
with  reference  to  deficiencies  and  inaccuracies  in  Anthon 's 
Dictionary  which  you  have  not  touched  upon.  The  circum 
stances  above  mentioned  have  made  it  impossible  for  me  to  do 
this  yet,  and  as  the  time  you  spoke  of  has  now  nearly  expired, 
any  suggestions  of  that  sort  would  probably  reach  you  too 
late.  I  regret  this  the  less,  as  I  have  no  doubt  your  own  re 
searches  have  led  to  pretty  much  the  same  results.  I  think 
the  stand  you  have  taken  upon  this  subject  highly  honorable 
to  yourself  and  creditable  to  the  independent  spirit  of  the 
Democratic  Review.  Depend  upon  it,  the  time  will  come,  if  it 
has  not  already,  when  the  scholarship  of  the  Country  will  not 
be  blinded  by  the  clouds  of  puffery  blown  up  by  the  Harpers, 
nor  frightened  out  of  its  propriety  by  the  arrogant  assump 
tions  of  Professor  Anthon.  I  rejoice  particularly  that  criti 
cal  Justice  has  been  done,  and  is  going  to  be  still  farther  done, 
to  the  work  of  Mr.  Anthon  in  New  York. 

At  this  late  day,  I  can  only  give  you  the  extracts  from 
Scholl.  If  your  reply  should  by  accident  be  delayed  for  an 
other  month,  I  shall  be  happy  to  communicate  further  with 
you  upon  the  subject.  It  is  possible  that  I  may,  if  my  engage 
ments  permit,  furnish  a  review  of  some  length  to  the  North 
American  of  next  January.  I  have  had  this  in  contemplation 
for  some  time :  but  it  would  not  prevent  my  imparting  to  you 
anything  that  has  occurred  to  me.  There  is  enough  for  all, 
and  more  too.  I  regret  that  I  have  not  been  able  to  make  some 
other  references  besides  those  you  mention :  but  the  following 
are  the  passages  in  Scholl  on  Lamachus.  He  says : 

"Lamachus,  un  des  membres  de  ce  gouvernement  que  les 
Historiens  ont  fletri  par  la  denomination  de  trente  tyrans, 
defendit  404  ans  avant  I.  C.  de  traduire  sur  la  scene  les  evene- 
ments  du  temps,  d'y  nommer  des  personnes  vivantes,  et  de 
faire  usage  des  parabases.  Une  nouvelle  epoque  commenQa 
alors  pour  le  theatre  grecque;  c'est  celle  qu'on  appelle  la  Co- 
medie  Moyenne,  et  qui  dura  jusqu'a  Meandre."  Tome  II, 
p.  107. 

Of  Diogenes  he  says, 

"Diogenes  de  Melos,  d'abord  esclave,  ensuite  affranchi  et 
disciple  de  Democrite,  passa  du  fanatisme  de  la  superstition 


62         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

a  celui  de  Pincredulite  la  plus  absolue.  L 'injustice  et  la  per- 
versite  des  hommes  le  porterent  a  nier  1'existence  de  la  divi- 
nite,  a  divulger  les  secrets  des  mysteres,  et  a  briser  les  idoles 
des  dieux.  Proscrit  par  les  Atheniens,  qui  mirent  sa  tete  a 
prix,  il  quitta  la  Grece,  et  perit  dans  un  naufrage.  C'est  pour- 
tant  a  cet  homme  d'une  imagination  exalte,  que  les  Mantineens 
durent  les  lois  sous  lesquelles  leur  etat  a  prospere. ' '  Tome  II, 
p.  324. 

There  is  no  reference  to  any  authority  in  any  of  these  pas 
sages. 

Hoping  this  may  be  in  time  for  your  purpose,  and  regretting 
that  I  have  been  unable  to  do  anything  more,  I  am, 

My  dear  Sir, 

Very  truly  yours 


In  the  winter  of  1842  I  was  much  flattered  by  the  following 
invitation  from  Rutgers  College : 


PHILOCLEAN  HALL,  RUTGERS  COLLEGE, 
NEW  BRUNSWICK,  NEW  JERSEY. 

Dear  Sir: 

Permit  us  in  behalf  of  the  Philoclean  Society  of  Rutgers  Col 
lege  to  tender  you  the  unanimous  wish  of  our  fraternity,  that 
you  would  deliver  the  customary  annual  oration  before  the 
two  societies  of  this  Institution  on  the  fourth  Tuesday  of  July, 
next,  the  day  preceding  our  Commencement.  At  the  close  of 
each  collegiate  year  we  have  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  turning 
from  the  study  of  the  past,  and  listening  to  the  voice  of  the 
wise  and  great  of  our  own  Country  and  Age.  As  young  men 
engaged  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge,  their  counsels  guide, 
and  their  examples  encourage  us,  in  our  onward  course;  and 
we  have  been  permitted  to  reckon  these  anniversaries  among 
the  most  favored  seasons  of  our  College  life.  The  counsels 
addressed  to  us  by  the  eloquent  and  lamented  Wirt,  who 
delivered  the  annual  oration  before  our  Institution  shortly 


ORATION  AT  RUTGERS  COLLEGE  63 

before  his  death,  are  still  preserved  and  cherished  by  the  suc 
cessive  members  of  the  College,  with  grateful  and  affectionate 
veneration.  And  we  sincerely  hope  that  you  will  yield  to  the 
united  wish  of  our  Society,  and  permit  us  to  add  your  name 
to  those  of  our  fellow  citizens,  who,  in  times  past,  have  fa 
vored  us  with  their  instructions  and  advice. 

We  have  the  honor  to  be  yours  respectfully, 

ABEL  T.  STUAKT 
PAUL  D.  VAN  CLIEF 

CHARLES  SCOTT 
December  6th,  1842. 


I  spent  a  good  deal  of  the  interval  between  the  invitation 
and  the  fourth  Tuesday  of  July  following  in  preparing  an 
address  on  the  Eeciprocal  Influences  of  the  Physical  Sciences 
and  Free  Institutions.  In  this  discourse  I  aired  some  opinions 
which  I  would  now  hesitate  to  defend,  but  as  the  audience  was 
mostly  younger  than  myself,  it  was  well  enough  received,  and 
the  next  day  I  received  the  following  invitation : 

NEW  BRUNSWICK,  July  26th,  1843. 

Extract  from  the  minutes  of  the  Philoclean  Society  held  July 

25th,  1843. 

"Besolved  unanimously— That  a  committee  be  appointed  to 
present  the  thanks  of  the  society  to  Mr.  J.  Bigelow,  Esq.,  for 
his  instructive  and  eloquent  address,  and  that  a  copy  of  the 
same  be  requested  for  publication. " 

Sir: 

The  undersigned,  appointed  as  the  committee,  while  they 
take  great  pleasure  in  communicating  to  you  the  above  reso 
lutions,  also  express  their  earnest  wish  that  you  may  feel  dis 
posed  to  comply  with  this  request. 

We  have  the  honor  to  be  yours, 

J.  V.  LANSING 
A.  T.  STUART 
JACOB  E.  HARDENBERG 
N.  F.  CHAPMAN 

Committee. 

To  JOHN  BIGELOW,  ESQ. 


64         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

I  modestly  declined  this  invitation,  but  three  years  later 
published  the  substance  of  it  in  the  January  number  of  the 
Democratic  Review  for  1846. 

It  was  in  the  early  forties  also— I  do  not  remember  the  year 
-that  Levi  Slamm  and  Clement  C.  Guyon  started  a  Democratic 
morning  newspaper  in  the  city,  called  the  Plebeian.  They 
asked  me,  I  presume  at  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Tilden  (for  I 
knew  neither  of  those  gentlemen  personally),  to  edit  the  liter 
ary  department  of  the  paper,  offering  me  a  very  modest 
stipend  for  my  services,  but  extending  to  me  unlimited  hos 
pitality  in  the  columns  of  the  paper. 

It  was  a  kind  of  work  which  delighted  me,  and  was  at  that 
time  probably  one  I  should  have  cheerfully  undertaken  without 
any  compensation  if  necessary.  It  is  fortunate  that  I  felt  so, 
because  my  salary  was  only  paid  three  or  four  weeks,  and 
afterwards  I  received  their  notes.  I  never  attempted  to 
negotiate  them,  and  they  may  still  be  found  possibly  among 
my  papers.  The  Plebeian  was  short-lived,  but  I  had  some  ex 
perience  of  journalism  and  an  incentive  to  study  outside  of  my 
profession  which  afterwards  I  had  some  reason  to  think  was 
of  service  to  me. 

An  article  on  Lucian  of  Samosata,  which  I  contributed  to 
the  Democratic  Review,  of  which  O 'Sullivan  was  the  editor, 
was  referred  to  in  the  following  note  from  its  editor : 


Friday  Morning,  July  22, 1842. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

Please  have  Lucian  ready  for  the  printer  on  Monday  morn 
ing.  I  have  no  occasion  myself  to  see  it  again  after  the  infliction 
of  that  Sunday  morning.  With  respect  to  the  '  'quiddam  hono 
rarium,"  let  it  rest  on  the  following  footing.  I  am  limited  by 
law  to  a  certain  sum  monthly,  which  I  may  not  exceed.  I  can 
not  tell  with  certainty  in  advance  how  much  I  shall  want.  If 
the  other  arrangements  for  the  rest  of  the  Number  enable  me 
to  keep  within  my  chiffre  &  give  you  $50,  very  well.  If  not, 
then  it  must  be  $40.  I  am  going  to  Washington  to-morrow 
afternoon  for  a  week. 

Yours  ever, 

J.  L.  0 'SULLIVAN. 


SILAS  WRIGHT  ELECTED   GOVERNOR  65 

Mr.  Tilden  and  I  both  took  the  failure  to  renominate  Presi 
dent  Van  Buren  *  to  the  Presidency  in  1844  very  much  to  heart 
—the  more  so  as  it  was  the  penalty  he  was  required  by  the 
slave  States  to  pay  for  opposing  the  admission  of  Texas  into 
the  Union  as  the  presumptive  parent  of  five  new  slave  States. 
James  K.  Polk  of  Tennessee  was  nominated.  Without  the 
vote  of  the  State  of  New  York,  although  then  a  strong  Demo 
cratic  State,  his  chances  of  election  were  desperate.  The 
Democrats  of  other  States  urged  the  friends  of  Mr.  Van 
Buren  in  New  York  to  nominate  Silas  Wright,  who  then  rep 
resented  New  York  in  the  United  States  Senate  and  was  very 
popular,  to  run  for  Governor.  To  this  Mr.  Wright  very 
reluctantly,  and  contrary  to  his  own  judgment,  yielded.  It 
then  became  important  for  his  friends  to  demonstrate,  by  the 
vote  he  should  receive,  the  extent  of  the  President's  obligation 
to  Mr.  Wright  for  the  sacrifice  he  was  making.  Mr.  Wright 
and  Mr.  Tilden  were  very  warm  friends,  and  I  soon  had  reason 
to  think  there  was  no  one  in  the  State  except  Mr.  Van  Buren 
to  whose  political  judgment  the  Senator  deferred  so  much  as 
to  his.  To  elect  Wright  and  by  a  larger  vote  than  the  Presi 
dential  candidate  became  the  absorbing  ambition  of  Mr.  Tilden 
and  his  friends.  At  this  time  the  Democrats  had  no  cheap  and 
popular  organ  in  the  city.  The  daily  press  was  almost  entirely 
in  the  hands  of  the  Whigs,  with  the  exception  of  the  Evening 
Post,  which,  however,  was  too  high-priced  for  campaign  uses 
in  those  days,  besides  having  a  way  of  being  rather  too  inde 
pendent  for  partisan  purposes. 

Mr.  Tilden  saw  and  appreciated  the  necessity  of  a  cheap 
paper  that  should  represent  the  Democracy  of  the  State  of 
New  York  and  the  political  interests  of  his  candidate  for  Gov 
ernor  as  well  as  promote  the  success  of  the  Presidential  ticket. 
He  invited  John  L.  0 'Sullivan,  who  was  then  the  surviving 
editor  of  the  Democratic  Review,  to  consider  with  him  the 
ways  and  means  of  starting  such  a  paper  with  0 'Sullivan  as 
its  managing  editor.  I  was  invited  to  look  after  the  depart 
ments  of  book  reviews,  the  drama,  and  the  opera.  As  we  were 
all  working  for  the  cause,  none  of  us,  I  believe,  either  asked 
for  or  received  any  compensation ;  I  certainly  did  not,  being 
by  this  time  as  much  interested  in  the  election  of  Mr.  Wright 
as  any  of  his  friends. 

1  The  eighth  President  of  the  United  States,  elected  in  1836,  died  in  July,  1862. 


66         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Governor  Wright  was  elected  by  a  flattering  majority  over 
the  Presidential  candidate  and  was  inaugurated  on  the  1st  of 
January,  1844.  Tilden,  at  the  Governor's  special  solicitation, 
became  a  candidate  and  was  elected  at  the  same  time  to  the 
Assembly.  That  year  I  had  occasion  professionally  to  attend 
the  January  term  of  the  Supreme  Court  then  sitting  at  Al 
bany.  During  my  stay,  Tilden  invited  me  one  evening  to  go 
and  call  with  him  upon  the  Governor,  whom  I  had  not  yet  seen. 
I  never  can  think  of  that  visit  without  smiling.  We  found  the 
Governor  alone,  and  very  soon  he  and  Mr.  Tilden  were  in  an 
earnest  discussion  of  the  problems  with  which  the  politics  of 
the  State  bristled  that  winter. 

When  Mr.  Tilden  talked  politics  with  any  one,  it  was  his 
habit  in  those  days  to  get  as  near  to  the  ear  of  his  interlocutor 
as  possible,  and  to  lower  his  voice  as  if  to  make  sure  he  was 
edifying  no  one  but  the  person  he  was  addressing.  The  Ad 
ministration  at  Washington,  with  ex-Governor  Marcy  in  the 
State  Department,  was  hostile  to  the  party  in  the  State  of 
New  York  of  which  Governor  Wright  was  the  head  and  rep 
resentative.  Horatio  Seymour,  who  was  a  partisan  of  Marcy 
and  of  the  Federal  Administration,  was  elected  Speaker, 
greatly  to  the  chagrin  of  Mr.  Wright's  friends.  What  to  do 
and  how  to  do  it,  especially  in  the  Assembly,  was  naturally 
the  subject  of  the  Governor's  and  Mr.  Tilden 's  conversation. 
If  I  had  not  known  Mr.  Tilden 's  habits  very  well,  I  should  prob 
ably  have  been  embarrassed;  but,  with  all  my  experience,  I 
could  not  help  feeling  the  awkwardness  of  my  position,  and 
after  a  while  I  arose  and  said, '  '  Mr.  Tilden,  I  '11  leave  you  now 
with  the  Governor,"  and  proceeded  to  bid  both  good  evening. 

I  went  through  this  ceremony  three  several  times  at  inter 
vals  from  a  quarter  to  half  an  hour  long,  but  at  every  instance 
he  begged  me  to  wait,  saying  he  would  go  in  a  few  minutes, 
etc. ;  but  the  debate  went  on  in  this  way  for  two  or  three  hours, 
I  taking  no  part  in  it  and  hearing  but  little  of  it  and  under 
standing  less. 

A  day  or  two  after  this  visit  to  Governor  Wright,  Mr.  Tilden 
invited  me  to  accompany  him  to  Kinderhook  to  see  ex-Presi 
dent  Van  Buren,  for  whose  election  to  the  Presidency  I  had 
cast  my  first  vote.  William  Allen  Butler  and  Theodore  Bailey 
Meyers  composed  the  rest  of  our  party.  We  dined  with  Mr. 
Van  Buren.  After  our  repast,  which  was  not  elaborate,  the 


INSPECTOR  OF  SING  SING  PRISON  67 

rest  of  my  companions  went  off  to  see  the  farm  and  its  stock. 
I  remained  with  the  President  alone  during  the  remainder  of 
our  stay.  He  was  a  very  engaging  and  prepossessing  man. 
He  talked  mostly  of  public  men  and  affairs,  and  he  teemed 
with  anecdotes  which  it  shames  me  to  have  forgotten.  I  only 
remember,  in  the  course  of  some  talk  about  the  Speaker,  Sey 
mour,  he  said  that  Seymour's  father  became  insane  the  latter 
part  of  his  life,  and  intimated  that  some  peculiarities  of  the 
Speaker  might  be  the  least  desirable  part  of  his  heritage.  I 
observed  that  Mr.  Van  Buren  drank  only  one  small  wine-glass 
of  Madeira  at  his  dinner,  and  took  no  dessert  but  an  apple.  In 
reply  to  some  remark  of  mine,  he  said  that  he  never  took  any 
other  dessert  but  a  little  fruit,  neither  puddings  nor  pastry. 

It  was  not  long  after  this  visit  to  Albany  that  Governor 
Wright  appointed  me  one  of  the  five  inspectors  of  the  Sing 
Sing  State  Prison.  Two  of  the  five  were  residents  of  the 
county  of  Westchester ;  a  third  was  Judge  Powers  of  Catskill ; 
a  fourth,  Benjamin  F.  Mace,  a  lawyer  of  Newburgh.  I  was 
the  fifth.  The  two  inspectors  from  the  county  were  men  who 
represented  local  interests  rather  more  faithfully  than  the 
interests  of  the  State,  as  the  other  three  thought.  I  think  the 
same  never  could  have  been  said  justly  of  either  of  the  other 
three,  who  happily  constituted  a  working  majority. 

My  duties  as  inspector  of  the  Sing  Sing  Prison  were  inter 
esting  and  instructive.  It  was  in  their  discharge  that  I  learned 
how  rough  is  the  road  any  reformer  has  to  travel,  and  how 
prone  the  public  generally  is  to  err  in  its  judgment  of  its  ex 
ecutive  officers— how  like  the  dragons'  teeth  obstacles  multiply 
under  the  feet  of  any  one  who  undertakes  with  a  singleness  of 
eye  to  reform  manifest  abuses. 

The  majority  of  our  board  was  appointed  by  Governor 
Wright  with  the  expectation  that  we  would  put  an  end  to 
notorious  abuses  which  had  for  years  been  making  that  prison 
a  more  or  less  grievous  financial  burden  to  the  State  as  well  as 
an  impeachment  of  its  humanity.  It  became  very  apparent 
at  an  early  stage  of  our  experience  that  the  policy  of  the 
minority  local  inspectors  and  that  of  the  majority  from  other 
counties  were  hopelessly  antagonistic.  The  prison  had  been 
run  for  years  exclusively  in  the  interest  of  the  contractors, 
and  the  local  inspectors  were  their  unconditional  allies.  They 
thought  it  an  agonizing  injustice  that  purchases  for  the  pris- 


68          RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

ons  were  ordered  to  be  made  in  quantities  at  wholesale  prices 
in  large  markets,  instead  of  being  made  of  the  smaller  dealers 
near  the  prison  at  retail  prices ;  that  officers  were  occasionally 
selected  from  outside  of  the  county  for  their  fitness  to  dis 
charge  the  duties  required  of  them,  instead  of  being  selected 
from  people  in  the  vicinity  of  the  prison,  whose  support  was 
otherwise  likely  to  become  a  charge  upon  the  State;  that  the 
assistant  keepers  were  forbidden  to  inflict  punishments  at 
their  discretion,  or  rather  at  the  discretion  of  the  contractors, 
instead  of  which  they  were  required  to  report  the  offences  of 
the  convicts  in  writing  to  the  principal  keeper,  that  he  might 
prescribe  their  punishment.  In  consequence  of  this,  the  ac 
complishments  of  reading  and  writing  were  added  to  those 
which  had  previously  been  esteemed  sufficient  for  this  class  of 
officers.  Naturally  indignant  at  these  unheard-of  innovations, 
all  of  those  whose  prescriptive  privileges  were  thus  invaded 
united  in  the  common  purpose  of  discrediting  the  prison  man 
agement  by  resorting  to  every  form  of  misrepresentation 
which  their  imaginations  could  devise. 

Of  course  the  most  prominent  feature  in  the  management 
of  these  inspectors— their  attempts  to  reform  the  discipline  of 
the  prison — was  most  vigorously  assailed;  and  because  they 
prohibited  the  use  of  bludgeons,  and  denied  to  the  officers  the 
privilege  of  kicking  and  beating  the  convicts  at  discretion,  they 
were  charged  with  having  converted  the  penitentiary  into  a 
boarding-school  and  an  agreeable  refuge  for  those  who  pre 
ferred  an  idle  repose  at  the  expense  of  the  State,  to  the  strug 
gles  for  an  honest  and  independent  livelihood.  To  verify  the 
proverb  that  every  falsehood  requires  ten  more  to  sustain  it, 
they  professed  to  have  discovered  that  the  revenues  of  the 
prison  were  falling  off  for  want  of  a  more  rigorous  discipline. 

Happily  the  results  furnished  all  the  vindication  of  our 
administration  that  was  necessary,  and  a  few  figures  will 
show  how  complete  it  was. 

For  the  year  previous  to  our  accession  to  office,  the  average 
wages  received  for  each  convict  from  the  contractors  were  a 
fraction  over  31  cents  per  diem.  For  the  following  year,  1844, 
during  which  some  old  contracts  expired,  enabling  us  to  make 
new  contracts,  the  average  wages  for  each  convict  were  35% 
cents.  At  the  expiration  of  our  term  the  average  wages  for 
the  year  were  45%4  cents.  The  earnings  of  the  prison  in  1843 


SEELEY  AND  BIGELOW  69 

were  $36,970  and  in  1847  $61,738— almost  doubled.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  was  an  annual  decrease  of  expenses  for  the 
support  of  the  prison  during  the  five  years  from  1843  to  1847 
inclusive  of  $5389.02. 

In  regard  to  discipline,  the  number  of  offences  reported  for 
the  year  1843  was  1389,  or  115%  per  month ;  and  the  average 
number  of  lashes  per  month,  1121,  and  for  the  year,  13,452— 
averaging  about  ten  lashes  for  each  offence.  During  the  last 
six  months  of  1844,  under  our  administration,  the  number  of 
violations  was  reduced  to  41%,  and  the  number  of  lashes,  422, 
a  little  more  than  one-third  of  the  number  for  the  previous 
six  months;  and  from  that  time  the  number  of  offences  and 
lashes  continued  to  decrease  until  that  form  of  punishment 
was  almost  entirely  dispensed  with. 

In  another  year  the  few  remaining  old  contracts  would  have 
expired  and  could  have  been  let  at  from  forty  to  fifty  cents  a 
day,  at  which  we  had  been  able  readily  to  relet  them,  and  which 
would  have  resulted  in  making  the  prison,  instead  of  a  burden 
to  the  State,  a  substantial  source  of  revenue.  We  estimated 
that  the  surplus  for  1848  would  have  been  at  least  $15,000  to 
be  covered  into  the  treasury. 

Early  in  the  year  1845  and  in  the  administration  of  Gov 
ernor  Wright  I  received  the  following  note : 


E.  SEELEY  TO  JOHN  BIGELOW 

NEW  YOKK,  21.  Feb.  '45. 
JOHN  BIGELOW,  ESQ., 
Sir: 

By  the  advice  of  a  friend  of  mine  (and  yours  too,  I  believe) , 
E.  P.  Hurlbut,  Esq.,  I  take  the  liberty  of  soliciting  a  short 
interview  with  you  in  a  matter  which  I  will  explain  when  we 
meet.  For  that  purpose  may  I  tax  your  kindness  to  call  at  my 
office  some  time  to-morrow— say  from  12  to  3.  I  name  my 
office  instead  of  calling  at  yours,  because  Mr.  Hurlbut  sug 
gested  that  mode  of  coming  together. 

Very  respectfully  yours 


70         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

As  Mr.  Hurlbut  was  an  intimate  friend  of  mine,  of  high 
standing  in  his  profession  and  a  dozen  or  more  years  my 
senior,  I  did  not  hesitate  to  wait  upon  Mr.  Seeley  at  his  office 
and  was  happy  to  accept  an  invitation  to  become  his  partner. 

Mr.  Seeley  was  an  excellent  lawyer,  a  bachelor,  sixty  years 
of  age ;  had  been  Mayor  of  New  Haven  and  had  some  money 
and  some  clients. 

During  the  year  1845  I  devoted  quite  as  much  of  my  time 
and  energy  to  advocating  the  call  of  the  convention,  through 
the  columns  of  the  Evening  Post  and  the  Democratic  Review, 
to  revise  the  Constitution  of  the  State  as  I  did  to  my  profes 
sion.  I  naturally  interested  myself  mainly  in  questions  affect 
ing  the  judiciary,  though  I  advocated  the  election  of  judges  by 
judicial  districts  instead  of  their  being  the  appointees  of  the 
Governor  and  Senate.  I  also  advocated  the  election  of  the  mem 
bers  of  the  lower  house  of  the  Legislature  by  single  Assembly 
districts  rather  than  by  a  general  ticket. 

I  have  often  repented  of  the  humble  part  I  had  in  bringing 
about  both  these  changes ;  and  yet  I  am  not  sure  that  any  mode 
of  choosing  these  functionaries  could  be  adopted  that  would 
prove  on  the  whole  more  satisfactory.  Most,  if  not  all,  of  the 
editorial  articles  which  appeared  in  the  Evening  Post  and  in 
the  Democratic  Review  on  these  topics  were  from  my  pen,  and 
I  had  besides  almost  the  exclusive  charge  of  the  Daily  News. 

Our  war  with  Mexico,  begun  for  the  extension  of  slavery  in 
1846,  deserves  to  be  regarded  as  the  inauguration  of  the  war 
between  Slavery  and  Freedom,  a  war  destined  not  to  end  until 
every  slave  in  the  country  became  a  free  man;  until  the  Con 
federate  insurgents  had  laid  down  their  arms,  and  their  com- 
mander-in-chief,  the  President  of  the  Confederate  States,  was 
a  captive. 

It  was  in  1847  that  Abraham  Lincoln,  destined  in  an 
other  generation  to  take  the  place  of  honor  in  history  beside 
that  of  Washington,  first  appeared  in  public  life  as  a  member 
of  Congress,  a  Moses  only  then  discovered  and,  as  it  were,  put 
to  nurse  in  the  bulrushes. 

The  slavery  question  by  this  time  had  largely  superseded 
all  other  political  issues.  The  favors  of  the  Federal  Govern 
ment  were  confined  exclusively  to  those  who  could  give  satis 
factory  evidence  of  disloyalty  to  Governor  Wright  and  Mr. 


THE  BUFFALO  CONVENTION  DEFEATS  CASS  71 

Van  Buren,  whose  friends  were  stigmatized  already  as  Aboli 
tionists,  than  which  no  more  opprobrious  name  could  then  be 
applied  to  any  public  man  at  the  seat  of  government. 

In  1847  Governor  Wright  was  renominated,  but  with  the 
undisguised  determination  of  the  Administration  at  "Washing 
ton  to  have  him  defeated.  In  this  they  were  so  far  successful 
as  to  secure  by  their  treachery  the  election  of  the  Whig  candi 
date.  The  time  was  at  hand  for  the  election  of  a  successor  to 
President  Polk,  who  was  not  deemed  available  for  a  renomina- 
tion.  When  the  Democratic  Convention  met  in  Baltimore,  the 
regular  delegates  of  the  State  of  New  York  were  met  by  an 
equal  number  of  men  claiming  to  be  delegates,  who  had  been 
selected  in  an  oyster  saloon  in  Albany.  The  convention  de 
cided  to  admit  both  delegations,  which  was  equivalent,  of 
course,  to  nullifying  the  vote  of  the  State  of  New  York  and 
giving  to  the  slave  States  the  control  of  the  convention. 

Mr.  Tilden  was  a  member  of  this  convention.  As  soon  as  it 
was  decided  to  admit  both  delegations,  the  regular  delegates 
quit  the  convention,  and  Lewis  Cass  of  Michigan  was  nomi 
nated  for  President  by  the  delegates  who  remained. 

Promptly  upon  the  return  of  the  regular  delegates  from 
New  York  State  to  their  homes,  they  issued  a  call  for  a  State 
convention  of  Democrats  at  Utica  to  receive  their  report.  At 
this  convention,  which  I  attended,  an  official  statement  of  the 
indignity  which  had  been  put  upon  the  Democrats  of  the  State 
was  issued.  President  Van  Buren,  his  son  John,  and  Mr.  Til- 
den  wrote  that  document.1  It  was  then  and  there  decided  to 
call  a  later  convention  at  Buffalo  for  the  nomination  of  candi 
dates  for  President  and  Vice-President,  and  for  the  choice  of 
Presidential  electors. 

At  the  Buffalo  convention  ex-President  Van  Buren  was 
nominated  for  President  and  Charles  Francis  Adams  of 
Massachusetts  was  nominated  for  Vice-President.  The  result 
was  the  election  of  General  Taylor  by  the  Whigs,  and  the  de 
feat  of  General  Cass,  who  was  worthy  of  a  better  fate,  but  not 
at  that  time.  I  had  myself  by  this  time  become  so  much  im 
pressed  with  the  blindness  and  desperation  of  the  slaveholding 
States  as  to  lose  all  sympathy  for  them  and  to  regard  their 
statesmen  as  more  dangerous  to  our  Union  and  institutions 
than  if  they  were  already  in  arms. 

-   l  See  Writings  and  Speeches  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden. 


72         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Even  at  this  early  stage  of  the  controversy  it  had  become 
apparent  that  any'  compromise  of  differences  between  the 
South  and  the  North,  any  permanent  modus  vwendi,  was  not 
much  longer  possible  until  their  differences  were  fought  to  a 
finish. 

The  Free-Soilers,  as  we  were  called  in  those  days,  of  course 
regarded  the  defeat  of  General  Cass  as  scarcely  less  of  a 
triumph  than  would  have  been  the  reelection  of  Mr.  Van 
Buren.  The  honor  of  our  State  was  vindicated,  and  the  people 
of  the  South  received  the  lesson,  though  it  failed  to  teach  them, 
that  the  sentiments  they  had  outraged  were  not  to  be  trifled 
with. 


A.D.  1794 


William  Cullen  Bryant 


A.D.  1878 


IV 

EXCHANGE  THE  BAR  FOR  THE  PRESS 

IN  the  fall  of  the  year  1848,  Mr.  Tilden  called  upon  me 
one  day  to  ask  how  I  should  like  to  join  Mr.  Bryant  in  the 
editorship  of  the  Evening  Post.  The  question  was  a  sur 
prise  to  me,  though  far  from  a  disagreeable  one.  Seeing  that 
I  was  somewhat  taken  aback  by  the  inquiry,  he  went  on  to  say 
that  Mr.  Bryant  stood  in  need  of  help,  that  I  had  shown  a 
tendency  to  journalism,  and  that  Mr.  Boggs,  one  of  his  part 
ners,  who  had  charge  of  the  printing  and  publishing  depart 
ment,  was  likely  to  quit  the  firm  before  long,  when  there  would 
be  an  opportunity  for  me  to  enter  the  firm.  Meantime  they 
were  prepared  to  offer  me  what  they  esteemed  a  liberal  com 
pensation  for  my  services.  Though  flattered  by  the  inquiry,  I 
told  Tilden  that  while  I  had  no  special  fondness  for  my  pro 
fession  nor  any  insuperable  objection  to  abandoning  it,  still 
it  was  a  step  not  to  be  taken  without  serious  deliberation ;  that 
I  would  turn  the  matter  over  in  my  mind,  and  let  him  know 
betimes  whether  I  could  entertain  any  proposition  to  abandon 
the  profession  in  which  I  had  been  trained  and  in  which  I  had 
what  appeared  to  be  as  substantial  a  prospect  of  success  as 
any  other  young  man  of  my  years  in  the  city,  to  embrace  a  new 
profession  of  which  I  had  little  or  no  technical  knowledge. 
1  i  But, 9 '  I  added, ' 1 1  might  as  well  say  to  you  here  at  once  that 
I  should  not  think  it  worth  while  to  consider  for  a  moment  any 
proposition  to  enter  the  Evening  Post  office  on  a  salary.  Un 
less  they  want  me  in  the  firm,  they  don't  want  me  enough  to 
withdraw  me  from  my  profession. ' ' 

Frequent  interviews  between  Mr.  Tilden  and  myself  ensued, 
which  were  chiefly  devoted  to  this  negotiation.  There  proved 
to  be  some  difficulty  in  agreeing  with  Mr.  Boggs  upon  the 

73 


74         RETKOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

terms  of  his  separation  from  the  firm.  He  was  embarrassed  in 
his  finances  and  was  using  the  credit  of  the  firm  pretty  freely 
to  meet  his  personal  engagements.  It  was  evident  to  his  col 
leagues  that  the  time  was  not  distant  when  he  would  be  obliged 
to  part  with  his  interest  in  the  paper,  as  it  was  the  only  prop 
erty  he  had  upon  which  he  could  raise  any  money.  Meantime 
I  was  urged  to  accept  a  salary  awaiting  his  surrender,  and 
was  given  to  understand  that  I  might  name  my  own  price. 
This  was  very  flattering  to  me,  but  fortunately  not  flattering 
enough  to  affect  my  judgment.  I  said  to  Mr.  Bryant,  who 
after  a  few  weeks  began  to  take  part  in  the  negotiations,  what 
I  had  previously  said  to  Mr.  Tilden— that  I  would  not  quit  my 
profession  and  the  rank  of  a  master  for  the  position  of  a  de 
pendent  on  any  salary  whatever ;  that  I  doubted  if  I  was  consti 
tuted  by  nature  to  do  my  best  in  a  salaried  position,  and  if  I 
went  into  the  Evening  Post  I  should  expect  to  give  it  not  only 
my  best  but  all  my  energy  and  capacity,  and  for  that  I  should 
insist  upon  being  paid  my  fair  share  of  what  they  proved  to 
be  worth.  That  was  only  practicable  as  a  partner,  or  part 
owner. 

As  I  was  inflexible  upon  this  point— and  I  have  never  ceased 
since  to  congratulate  myself  that  I  was— the  negotiations 
dragged  on  for  several  weeks,  until  a  result  which  had  been 
anticipated  by  the  firm  was  realized.  Mr.  Boggs  succumbed  to 
his  necessities,  and  we  soon  came  to  an  understanding  with 
each  other.  Early  in  the  month  of  December  we  executed  the 
papers  by  which  I  became  the  proprietor  of  three  and  one- 
tenth  shares  of  all  the  property  of  the  firm  of  Wm.  C.  Bryant 
&  Co.,  which  consisted  of  the  Evening  Post  newspaper,  a  feebly 
equipped  job  office,  and  the  files  of  the  paper,  running  back  to 
the  beginning  of  the  century,  for  which  I  agreed  to  pay  Mr. 
Boggs  the  sum  of  fifteen  thousand  dollars. 

The  average  annual  earnings  for  the  preceding  ten  years 
had  been  $37,360.76,  as  follows : 

1839 $28,355.29 

1840 44,194.93 

1841 39,784.84 

1842 33,958.73 

1843 33,370.91 

Carried  forward,  $179,664.70 


ENTER  THE  FIRM  OF  WM.  C.  BRYANT  &  CO.       75 

Brought  forward,  $179,664.70 

1844 36,278.92 

1845 37,468.92 

1846 37,044.23 

1847 41,985.16 

1848 41,165.69 

$373,607.62  aggregate  earnings  for  ten  years. 


The  average  annual  dividends  for  the  five  years  from  1844 
to  1848,  inclusive,  had  been  $9776.44,  or  at  the  rate  of  $977.64 
a  share. 

After  deducting  seven  per  cent.,  which  was  the  legal  rate  of 
interest,  for  the  money  I  was  to  pay  for  my  stock,  and  three 
per  cent,  for  a  sinking  fund,  the  earnings  of  the  paper,  unless 
increased,  would  have  yielded  me  but  about  $1500  for  my  ser 
vices.  I  had  so  much  confidence,  however,  in  my  ability,  with 
Mr.  Bryant's  assistance,  to  render  the  paper  more  productive, 
that  I  did  not  quarrel  with  the  price,  though  in  it  the  pro 
prietors  seemed  to  be  discounting  its  prospects.  They  were 
so  anxious,  however,  to  secure  what  they  hoped  would  prove 
a  more  useful  partner  than  Mr.  Boggs  that  they  acceded  to 
terms  which  under  other  circumstances  they  would  probably 
have  rejected.  The  firm  of  Wm.  C.  Bryant  &  Co.  thenceforth 
consisted  of  William  C.  Bryant,  myself,  and  Timothy  A.  Howe, 
who  for  many  years  had  been  a  printer  in  the  office  before 
entering  the  firm,  and  was  now  to  take  the  place  of  Mr.  Boggs 
as  its  business  manager.  As  I  had  accumulated  very  little 
money  in  my  profession,  and  none  which  I  could  conveniently 
spare  for  such  an  investment,  I  became  indebted  to  Wm.  C. 
Bryant  &  Co.  for  all  my  stock,  except  $2500  which  it  was  neces 
sary  to  provide  for  the  immediate  relief  of  Mr.  Boggs,  whose 
notes  and  due  bills  had  almost  as  wide  a  circulation  in  the  city 
as  the  Evening  Post.  An  attempt  was  made  to  raise  this  sum 
upon  the  notes  of  Wm.  C.  Bryant  &  Co.,  but  it  proved  that 
there  was  as  much  of  their  paper  on  the  street  as  it  could  ab 
sorb  ;  and  for  a  day  or  two  it  was  a  question  whether  our  whole 
negotiation  would  not  fall  through  from  our  inability  to  pro 
cure  this  money,  without  which  Mr.  Boggs  could  not  leave. 

For  the  first  time  in  my  life,  I  found  myself  in  a  position 
when  it  seemed  to  be  my  duty  to  test  my  own  credit.  I  had  no 


76          RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

relations  to  speak  of  with  any  bank  or  bankers.  I  fancied  I 
had  a  good  many  friends,  as  many  and  as  sincere  ones,  per 
haps,  as  most  young  men  of  my  years— I  was  then  thirty-one 
years  of  age— but  my  friends  were  generally  my  contempo 
raries,  and  belonged  to  a  class  who  could  not  conveniently 
lend  $2500  to  any  one.  Nor  could  I  offer  a  very  inviting  in 
vestment  to  those  who  could.  I  was  quitting  the  profession 
for  which  I  had  been  trained,  and  embarking  in  one  for  which 
I  could  hardly  be  said  to  have  had  any  training.  I  was  incur 
ring  large  obligations  the  discharge  of  which  must  depend 
upon  my  ability  to  breathe  a  new  life  into  what  then  appeared 
to  be  anything  but  a  productive  and  prosperous  enterprise. 
My  father  could  have  accommodated  me,  but  I  did  not  ask 
him.  He  had  generously  borne  the  expense  of  equipping  me 
in  one  profession,  and  I  shrank  from  asking  him  out  of  his 
modest  fortune  to  provide  me  with  the  means  of  starting  in 
another  of  which  he  had  no  knowledge,  and  upon  conditions 
which  he  was  imperfectly  qualified  to  appreciate.  I  was 
changing  my  profession  upon  my  own  judgment,  and  I  felt 
that  I  ought  to  do  it  from  my  own  resources.  I  therefore 
forbore  to  ask  him  for  the  money  or  to  allow  him  to  feel  that 
my  negotiations  were  dependent  upon  his  cooperation;  nor 
did  he  propose  to  come  to  my  relief,  though  he  knew  I  must 
use  my  credit  to  a  greater  or  less  extent.  The  reason,  as  I 
afterwards  had  good  ground  for  inferring,  was  to  test  me 
and  see  how  thoroughly  I  had  studied  out  the  problem  I  had 
grappled  with,  and  what  capital  of  character,  influence  and 
social  consideration  I  had  stored  up  for  myself  during  my 
fourteen  years'  residence  in  New  York.  He  might  justly 
have  questioned  the  wisdom  of  the  step  I  was  taking,  if  I  had 
found  myself  finally  under  the  necessity  of  going  to  one  so 
incompetent  as  he  to  judge  of  its  merits,  for  aid  in  carrying 
it  out.  After  spending  two  or  three  days  meditating  upon 
the  course  I  should  pursue  and  canvassing  my  acquaintance— 
in  eliminating,  first,  those  who  had  not  the  means;  second, 
those  who  probably  would  be  indisposed  to  risk  them  with  no 
better  security  than  I  could  offer ;  and  third,  those  to  whom  I 
would  be  unwilling  to  place  myself  under  obligation— I  finally 
determined  to  submit  my  wants  to  the  one  man  of  all  my 
acquaintance  upon  whom  I  had  the  slightest  possible  claim  for 
favors  of  any  description. 


THE   GENEROSITY  OF  CHARLES  O'CONOR       77 

I  had  known  Charles  0 'Conor  for  four  or  five  years;  we 
had  been  associated    together    on    committees    of    the    bar, 
appointed  to  secure  some  legislation  at  Albany;  we  had  both 
taken  a  lively  interest  in  the  discussions  which  preceded, 
attended  and  followed  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  1846, 
of  which  he  was  a  member ;  and  at  one  time  and  another  had 
interchanged  opinions  upon  most  of  the  questions  discussed 
in  that  body.     We  were  not  in  close  sympathy  with  each 
other  on  many  of  these  questions,  while  in  politics  he  belonged 
to  what  was  then  known  as  the  "  Hunker "  wing  of  the  Demo 
cratic  party,  and  I  was  a  "  Barnburner. "    We  had,  however, 
two  or  three  bonds  of  sympathy  which  were  infinitely  stronger 
than  any  of  our  differences.     We  both  were  in  earnest;  we 
were  both  disinterested,  and  both  sincerely  anxious  to  accom 
plish  what  we  understood  to  be  for  the  best  interests  of  the 
bar  and  the  public;  so  that  our  debates,  though  they  tended 
to  separate  us  wider  and  wider  on  questions  of  public  polity, 
increased  our  mutual  respect.     He  was  then  approaching  the 
summit  of  his  profession;  I  was  about  as  near  to  the  other 
end  of  it,  and  of  course,  therefore,  it  was  never  difficult  for 
me  but  always  a  privilege  to  listen  with  respect  to  his  views, 
and  to  present  my  own  not  always  perhaps  with  the  modesty 
and  deference  suitable  to  the  difference  in  our  years  and  posi 
tion.    We  were  not  intimate,  we  had  no  social  relations  prop 
erly  speaking,  for  we  had  never  met  socially  except  at  the 
houses  of  common  friends.    I  felt,  however,  that  I  enjoyed 
to  some  extent  his  respect  and  confidence.    I  knew  that  he 
would  not  suspect  me  of  seeking  to  borrow  money  because  it 
was  easier  to  get  it  that  way  than  to  work  for  it ;  I  knew  also 
that  the  loan  which  I  required  would  probably  subject  him  to 
no  inconvenience,  that  he  could  refuse  me  without  in  the  least 
disturbing  our  personal  relations,  and,  finally,  that  in  accept 
ing  a  favor  at  his  hands  I  should  incur  no  obligations  which 
would  ever  embarrass  me.     The  result  of  my  meditations  was 
a  call  at  Mr.  0 'Conor's  office.    I  stated  to  him  the  negotia 
tions  in  which  I  was  engaged,  and  upon  what  their  consumma 
tion  depended— that  I  had  come  to  him  to  know  if  he  was  will 
ing  to  risk  his  name  across  the  notes  of  Wm.  C.  Bryant  &  Co. 
for  the  sum  of  $2500.     I  intended  to  tell  him  that  no  one  was 
better  aware  than  I  that  I  had  no  claim  upon  him  for  such  a 
favor,  that  I  had  no  right  to  expect  from  him  anything  but  a 


78         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

refusal,  and  that  I  was  not  sure  that  I  would  not  think  more 
highly  of  his  judgment  if  he  refused  than  if  he  yielded  to  my 
application.  Such  was  the  little  speech  through  which  I  had  pro 
posed  to  make  my  needs  known.  He  did  not  give  me  time  to 
get  further  with  my  speech  than  to  disclose  my  need  for  his 
endorsement,  when,  in  the  most  cordial  way,  he  muttered  a 
few  amiable  words  about  the  loss  the  bar  would  sustain  by 
my  desertion  of  it,  and  then  raising  his  voice,  exclaimed, 
1 1 Send  on  the  notes  at  once."  By  his  manner  and  language 
he  at  once  made  me  feel  as  if  it  was  I  rather  than  he  that  was 
conferring  a  favor. 

It  would  be  idle  for  me  to  attempt  to  make  any  person 
appreciate  this  act  as  I  did,  or  to  comprehend  all  my  grati 
tude.  Many  a  time  since  I  would  have  gladly  given  the  whole 
sum  for  the  pleasure  I  had  in  telling  it  to  the  few  intimate 
friends  to  whom  I  had  in  confidence  imparted  my  necessities. 
It  was  a  tribute  from  one  of  the  most  eminent  members  of  the 
profession  I  was  about  to  leave  which  enabled  me  to  enter  the 
profession  I  was  about  to  adopt,  not  as  a  refugee,  but  with 
dignity  and  confidence.  It  was  a  tribute  which  discharged  no 
debts,  and  which  imposed  no  obligations  save  those  of  honor 
able  gratitude. 

I  have  stated  this  incident  with  some  detail,  because  it  was 
an  interesting  though  probably  by  no  means  an  uncommon 
event  in  the  life  of  one  of  the  most  richly  endowed  barristers 
of  this  or  indeed  of  any  age,  and  because  I  wish  my  children 
to  know  the  full  proportions  of  what  I  regard  as  one  of  the 
most  precious  compliments  ever  paid  to  their  father,  and  to 
repeat  it  to  their  children,  and  faithfully  to  recognize  and 
respect  the  obligations  of  gratitude  it  entails  upon  them. 

Before  I  dismiss  this  first  occasion  of  testing  my  credit  in 
New  York,  I  may,  I  think,  with  propriety  mention  an  incident 
which  more  than  anything  else  drove  me  to  what  seemed  the 
desperate  resource  of  applying  to  Mr.  0 'Conor. 

Mr.  Tilden  told  me  that  he  had  spoken  to  Mr.  Havemeyer, 
then  president  of  the  Bank  of  North  America,  I  believe,  about 
endorsing  the  notes  of  Bryant  &  Co.  for  my  accommodation  as 
well  as  theirs,  and  that  Mr.  Havemeyer  declined  to  do  it,  though 
his  relations  with  Mr.  Tilden  both  professionally  and  politically 
were  exceedingly  intimate,  and  I  was  on  quite  satisfactory 
terms  with  him  myself.  I  realized  at  once,  though  I  said 


HAVEMEYER'S  STORY  OF  A  SCHOOL-FELLOW    79 

nothing  to  Mr.  Tilden  on  the  subject,  that  my  credit  was  not 
a  merchantable  commodity;  that  I  had  no  right  to  expect  a 
business  man  to  take  my  paper  or  under  the  circumstances 
even  Bryant  &  Co.'s  paper  for  my  accommodation.  I  refer 
to  this  fact  now  as  a  pretext  only  for  relating  an  incident 
which  occurred  a  year  or  two  later  and  when  my  personal 
relations  with  Mr.  Havemeyer  and  his  family  had  become 
rather  intimate. 

As  I  was  strolling  home  from  my  office  one  afternoon,  I 
was  joined  on  Broadway  by  Mr.  Havemeyer,  and  we  walked 
home  together.  On  our  way  up  Broadway  we  met  by  chance 
a  Mr.  Charles  Anderson,  brother  of  Professor  Anderson,  then 
of  Columbia  College,  both  personally  known  to  both  of  us.  Mr. 
Charles  Anderson  was  a  man  of  about  the  same  age  as  Mr. 
Havemeyer  and  had  enjoyed  in  his  youth  the  advantages  of 
a  refined  home,  good  schools,  an  established  social  position, 
powerful  connections  and  every  apparent  guaranty  of  worldly 
prosperity.  His  life,  however,  had  not  kept  the  promise  of 
his  youth.  He  had  not  been  prosperous  at  all.  Though  lead 
ing  to  all  appearances  an  exemplary  life,  seemingly  indisposed 
to  vicious  associations  of  any  sort,  domestic  in  his  habits,  his 
life  had  been,  humanly  speaking,  as  complete  a  failure  as  my 
companion's  had  been  a  success.  He  had  tried  many  dif 
ferent  kinds  of  business,  had  not  succeeded  in  any;  had  pretty 
much  exhausted  the  liberality  and  patience  of  friends  dis 
posed  to  assist  him,  and  even  his  visits  were  now  rather 
avoided  than  cultivated  by  his  acquaintance,  for  he  was  always 
needy.  At  the  time  of  which  I  speak  he  had  got  to  borrowing 
quite  small  sums,  no  doubt  hoping  but  scarcely  expecting  to 
repay  them,  and  in  this  way  had  become  more  or  less  indebted 
to  most  of  his  acquaintance.  His  dress  was  careless  and  worn 
to  the  verge  of  shabbiness.  He  had  a  general  look  of  belong 
ing  to  no  one  and  of  nobody  belonging  to  him.  In  passing 
we  saluted  him,  and  in  reply  to  some  remark  of  mine  about 
his  forlorn  appearance  and  condition  Mr.  Havemeyer  said : 

"Anderson  and  I  used  to  be  schoolmates.  As  our  school 
was  at  some  distance  from  our  respective  homes,  we  used  to 
carry  our  dinners,  which  we  generally  ate  in  each  other 's  com 
pany.  It  was  my  habit  to  begin  my  dinner  with  my  cold 
meat  and  bread,  and  when  that  was  finished  I  ate  my  pie  or 
cake  or  whatever  delicacy  my  mother  had  put  into  my  little 


80          KETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

basket  for  dessert,  while  Anderson,  I  observed,  always  began 
with  his  pie  or  cake  and  finished  with  his  cold  meat.  I  asked 
him  one  day  why  he  ate  his  pie  first  instead  of  reserving  it 
till  his  appetite  was  in  a  measure  satisfied.  His  answer  was : 
'I  eat  the  good  things  first  and  when  I  am  most  hungry,  because 
then  I  enjoy  them  most.  When  I  would  have  eaten  all  that 
meat  I  should  not  enjoy  the  pie  half  so  much  as  I  do  at  first. ' 
'True,'  said  I,  'but  you  spoil  your  appetite  for  your  cold  meat, 
which  you  would  enjoy  when  hungry,  and  after  which  you 
would  enjoy  your  pie  also/  Neither  my  reasoning  nor  my 
example  convinced  him.  His  process  at  school  prefigured  his 
life.  In  his  youth  he  ate  his  pie  and  all  the  sweet  things  which 
his  family  could  provide  for  him,  and  now  in  his  old  age,  poor 
fellow,  he  is  worrying  down  his  hardtack,  as  you  see.  Had 
he  learned  a  little  self-denial  when  young,  he  would  not  have 
had  to  endure  so  much  in  his  advanced  age.  He  started  life 
with  every  advantage  apparently  over  me.  His  parents  were 
comparatively  rich,  mine  were  comparatively  poor.  He  was 
sent  to  college  and  educated  for  a  liberal  profession,  while  I 
was  obliged  to  leave  school  early  to  earn  my  living.  Had  he 
taken  advantage  of  his  youth  and  strength  to  do  what  it  was 
then  comparatively  easy  for  him  to  do,  had  he  denied  himself 
the  luxuries  of  idleness  and  extravagance  then,  he  would  now 
probably  have  leisure,  wealth  and  consideration,  instead  of 
being  beholden  to  his  friends  more  than  half  the  time  for 
money  to  purchase  his  dinner  with.  He  ate  his  pie  when  he 
was  young;  he  must  sustain  his  old  age  upon  what  is  left  in 
his  basket." 

Mr.  Havemeyer's  story  left  a  profound  impression  upon 
me  and  furnished  a  perfectly  satisfactory  explanation  of 
his  declining  to  endorse  Bryant  &  Co.'s  notes.  He  was  per 
fectly  right.  New  York  was  full  of  men  who  had  just  as  good 
and  no  better  a  right  to  come  to  a  president  of  a  bank  and  ask 
him  to  cash  their  notes  as  I  had. 

Though  I  sometimes  felt  that  I  had  sufficient  faculty  for 
a  reasonable  success  in  the  profession  of  the  law,  I  cannot  say 
that  I  ever  enjoyed  it,  nor  do  I  now  think  I  was  ever  con 
stituted  to  enjoy  it,  however  successful  I  might  have  been. 
To  compare  small  things  with  great,  I  always  felt  while  at  the 
bar  as  Lord  Bacon  expressed  himself  in  a  letter  to  the  Lord 
Keeper  Sir  Thomas  Egerton,  soliciting  his  appointment  to 


AFFLICTING  LETTER  FROM  CHARLES  O'CONOR    81 

the  office  of  Solicitor-General,  made  vacant  by  the  promotion 
of  Sir  Edward  Coke  to  the  office  of  Attorney-General : 

I  am  not  so  far  deceived  in  myself  but  that  I  know  very  well,  and 
I  think  your  lordship  is  major  corde  and  in  your  wisdom  you  note  it 
more  deeply  than  I  can  in  myself,  that  in  practising  the  law,  I  play 
not  all  my  best  game,  which  maketh  me  accept  it  with  a  nisi  quod 
potius  as  the  best  of  my  fortune  and  a  thing  agreeable  to  better  gifts 
than  mine  but  not  to  mine. 

Some  two  years  after  the  events  I  have  been  describing,  the 
friendship  thus  cemented  between  Mr.  O'Conor  and  myself 
was  destined  to  experience  a  rude  but  happily  not  a  fatal  dis 
turbance.  It  is  due  to  Mr.  0 'Conor's  memory  that  of  this 
also  I  should  make  a  permanent  record.  Though  a  little  out 
of  its  chronological  order,  this  is  as  fitting  a  place  as  any  likely 
to  occur  for  me  to  refer  to  it. 

In  April,  1851,  and  after  the  political  dissensions  between 
the  "  Hunker "  and  ' l  Barnburner "  divisions  of  the  Demo 
cratic  party  had  become  practically  irreconcilable,  I  received 
the  following  letter  from  Mr.  0 'Conor: 


WHITE  PLAINS,  April  7th,  1851. 
JOHN  BIGELOW,  ESQ., 

Dear  Sir: 

Some  ten  days  ago  I  aided  as  counsel  in  opposing  a  Com 
mon  Motion  in  a  civil  suit  before  one  of  our  city  courts,  made 
by  Mr.  John  Van  Buren.  On  that  occasion,  as  well  as  on  all 
others,  I  exhibited  towards  that  individual  the  utmost  per 
sonal  courtesy,  and  certainly  used  no  expression  concerning 
him  which  was  not  compatible  with  entire  personal  respect. 

I  did  not  hear  his  reply,  nor  imagine  that  it  could  have 
contained  any  uncivil  allusion  to  myself  until  this  moment, 
when  on  looking  into  the  Post,  I  met  with  a  report  of  his 
speech,  containing  a  gross  personal  attack  upon  me. 

The  character  of  his  production  would  warrant  a  belief 
that  no  person  pretending  to  a  decent  position  would  have 
composed  it:  and  the  fact  that  since  its  supposed  delivery 
the  imputed  author  has  had  the  effrontery  to  address  me  in 
the  ordinary  method  of  friendly  intercourse  might  induce  a 
doubt  of  its  authenticity. 


82         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

But  your  professional  reporter  could  not  have  taken  it  down 
in  Court,  for  it  was  never  delivered  there.  Its  form  belongs 
not  to  any  style  of  forensic  composition:  it  is  a  deliberate 
distillation  from  qualities  I  will  not  name— laboriously  elabo 
rated  in  the  essayist's  chamber— and  first  made  public 
through  the  press.  These  circumstances,  coupled  with  my  ob 
servation  of  that  person's  practice,  and  the  control  he  seems 
to  possess  over  your  columns,  satisfy  me  that  the  report  is 
authentic,  at  least  so  far  as  his  avowal  can  make  it  so;  and 
also  show— the  ice  being  now  broken— what  I  may  expect 
from  the  Post  in  future. 

There  is  one  member  of  my  family  to  whom  such  things 
are  painful;  and  to  protect  that  one  from  the  annoyance  of 
similar  occurrences,  I  have  been  obliged  to  address  a  business 
note  to  your  office  requesting  a  discontinuance  of  my  paper. 
The  loss  of  a  single  subscriber  is  too  insignificant  to  be 
noticed,  and  I  certainly  should  not  have  treated  it  as  of  any 
moment  or  troubled  you  with  explanation,  but  for  our  former 
and  'til  now  undisturbed  relations. 

I  have  always  felt  bound  to  endure  uncomplainingly 
political  assaults,  from  whatever  quarter  they  came,  and  even 
personal  abuse  appearing  in  the  political  columns ;  but  I  can 
not  by  my  own  act  force  upon  the  perusal  of  my  own  domestic 
circle  a  journal  which  lends  itself  to  an  enemy— the  instru 
ment  of  his  attack  upon  me,  in  my  private  and  professional 
relations. 

As  the  object  of  this  letter  is  essentially  personal  to  myself 
—to  protect  myself  from  misinterpretation— I  do  not  regard 
its  contents  as  confidential  or  desire  to  appropriate  any  more 
of  your  time  and  attention  than  may  be  consumed  in  its 
perusal.  No  reply  is  sought  or  expected. 

I  am,  dear  Sir, 

Yours  Besp'y, 

OH.  0 'CONOR. 


I  had  been  in  the  Evening  Post  but  about  eighteen  months, 
and  had  never  so  fully  realized,  till  I  laid  down  this  letter,  how 
dangerous  were  the  tools  the  journalist  has  to  work  with.  If 
there  was  any  mortal  living  whose  sensibilities  more  than  those 
of  any  other  person,  even  a  kinsman,  I  would  have  desired 


O'CONOR  AND  JOHN  VAN  BUREN  83 

to  respect,  that  person  was  Charles  0 'Conor;  and  here  sud 
denly  I  was  surprised  to  find  myself  guilty  of  an  offence  of 
so  grave  a  character  as  to  compel  him  practically  to  deny  me 
his  house ;  for  to  exclude  my  paper  from  it  was  to  exclude  me. 
My  defence  and  excuse,  so  far  as  the  offence  admitted  of 
either,  was  promptly  reduced  to  writing  and  placed  in  Mr. 
0 'Conor's  hands: 


Evening  Post  Office, 

Wednesday  Morning. 
C.  O'CoNOK,  ESQ., 

My  dear  Sir: 

I  will  not  attempt  to  conceal  from  you  the  pain  and  morti 
fication  which  I  have  suffered  from  your  letter  received  yes 
terday  and  dated  at  White  Plains.  I  recognize  the  propriety 
of  your  course  in  declining  to  receive  the  Evening  Post  longer 
at  your  house,  and  am  deeply  sensible  of  the  kindness  which 
dictated  the  gentle  mode  you  adopted  of  communicating  your 
determination.  To  that  I  owe  the  opportunity  of  which  I  now 
avail  myself,  to  mention  some  circumstances  which  may  ex 
tenuate,  if  they  will  not  excuse,  the  carelessness  of  which  you 
have  reason  to  complain. 

The  report  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's  speech  was  not  brought  to 
me  by  himself,  whom  I  had  not  seen  for  several  weeks  previous 
to  the  argument.  It  was  brought  by  Mr.  Fowler  at  the  in 
stance  of  Mr.  Tompkins.  I  took  it  for  granted  that  the  report 
was  literal  and  accurate,  because  it  contained  a  number  of 
interlineations  and  corrections  in  the  hand- writing  of  Mr.  Van 
Buren.  Since  the  receipt  of  your  letter,  I  have  taken  some 
pains  to  ascertain  the  correctness  of  your  impression  that 
the  printed  speech  is  materially  different  from  the  spoken 
one,  and  am  inclined  to  think  you  have  been  misinformed, 
especially  as  to  the  portion  which  related  to  yourself.  At 
all  events,  I  received  it  as  an  authentic  report  of  a  speech 
made  by  a  responsible  and  popular  speaker  in  a  public  forum 
upon  a  subject  of  considerable  public  interest,  and  for  which, 
whether  authentic  or  not,  the  author  became  responsible  by 
consenting  to  its  publication. 

I  gave  it  to  the  printer  without  reading  it:  even  the  proof 
was  read  over  by  Mr.  Fowler  at  my  request,  nor  did  I  dis- 


84          RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

cover  until  I  took  up  the  paper  in  the  evening  of  its  day  of 
publication,  the  bitter  personal  allusions  to  yourself  which  it 
contained.  While  I  was  marking  it  for  the  printer,  I  glanced 
at  a  few  pages  of  the  MS.  and  noticed  that  some  positions  of 
yours  were  reviewed  in  it,  but  it  never  occurred  to  me  that 
there  was  anything  in  its  language  or  tone  at  which  you  had  a 
right  to  take  personal  offense.  Indeed  until  I  read  the  speech 
in  the  paper,  it  would  not  have  been  possible  for  me  to  have 
repeated  a  single  point  or  expression  which  it  contained.  I  know 
how  trifling  this  excuse  must  appear  in  your  eyes,  and  I  feel 
great  reluctance  in  presenting  it;  but  I  am  anxious  above  all 
things  to  disabuse  your  mind  of  the  impression  that  I  have 
deliberately  permitted  our  paper  to  be  made  the  instrument  of 
an  attack  either  upon  the  private  or  professional  relations  of 
one  to  whom  I  feel  myself  bound  by  every  consideration 
of  respect,  of  friendship,  and  of  gratitude. 

Under  different  circumstances,  I  should  have  complained 
of  your  allusion  to  the  control  which  you  intimate  that  Mr. 
Van  Buren  possesses  over  the  columns  of  the  Evening  Post; 
but  after  what  has  occurred,  I  shall  content  myself  with  simply 
assuring  you  that  there  has  never  been  a  time  since  I  have 
been  connected  with  the  Evening  Post,  when  Mr.  Van  Buren 
or  anyone  else  could  have  made  me  indifferent  to  your  regard 
or  insensible  to  your  kindness,  nor  when  I  was  not  ready  to 
make  greater  sacrifices  to  oblige  you  than  I  would  have  made 
for  any  other  living  man  not  of  my  own  kindred. 

Your  allusion  to  what  you  had  to  expect  from  the  Post  for 
the  future,  pained  me  only  less  than  the  unhappy  incident  that 
provoked  it ;  for,  taken  in  connection  with  another  paragraph 
of  your  letter,  it  imported  that  you  had  already  fully  accom 
modated  yourself  to  a  disturbance  of  the  relations  which  have 
hitherto  subsisted  between  us.  It  is  for  you  to  determine 
whether  our  future  relations  with  each  other  shall  be  changed. 
But  as  for  the  Evening  Post,  so  long  as  it  remains  in  charge 
of  its  present  proprietors,  it  will  never,  unless  by  accident,  be 
the  medium  of  circulating  any  sentiment  or  expression  in 
consistent  with  the  sincere  personal  respect  which  is  felt  for 
you  by  us  all. 

I  shall  continue  to  subscribe  myself, 

Ever  your  very  sincere  friend, 

JOHN  BIGELOW. 


A.D.  1804 


A.D.  1884 


Charles  O'Conor 


O'CONOR'S  FORGIVENESS  85 

P.S.  The  passage  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's  speech  which  relates  to 
yourself,  I  have  stricken  from  our  country  edition  printed  last 
night.  I  enclose  to  you  a  copy. 

Yours, 

J.  B. 


To  this  letter  I  received  in  the  course  of  two  or  three  days 
the  following  reply: 

Saturday  Evening. 
Dear  Sir: 

Your  favor  of  Wednesday  is  before  me.  My  sole  object  in 
addressing  you  was  to  account  for  an  act  which  unexplained 
might  seem  to  have  been  dictated  by  unworthy  motives. 

If  the  language  of  my  hurried  note  from  White  Plains,  to 
which  yours  is  a  reply,  implied  that  our  friendly  relations  had 
ceased,  it  was  not  selected  to  announce  their  withdrawal  on 
my  part,  but  to  recognize  the  fact  that  they  had  ceased  upon 
yours.  This  was  fairly  to  be  inferred  from  what  had  occurred. 
Your  note  removes  the  grounds  of  that  inference,  and  it  will 
be  enough  for  me  to  say  that  my  sentiments  toward  you  must 
consequently  remain  unchanged.  It  is  not  at  all  in  accordance 
with  my  temper  to  turn  from  the  foe  who  strikes  and  indulge 
in  resentment  against  the  friend  who  merely  failed  to  ward  off 
the  blow.  Indeed,  I  intended  to  have  said  in  my  former  note 
that  nothing  was  further  from  my  intentions  than  to  deem 
or  hold  you  in  any  form  responsible.  In  my  haste  it  was 
omitted. 

One  word  more  of  explanation,  and,  as  between  us,  the  sub 
ject  will,  I  trust,  be  entombed  forever. 

I  regret  that  you  took  the  trouble  to  expurge  this  attack 
from  any  of  your  editions.  In  the  world  there  was  but  one 
person  from  whose  eye  I  desired  to  keep  these  attacks,  and  to 
obtain  that  result  merely,  I  acted. 

I  am,  dear  Sir, 

Yours  resp'y> 

CHARLES 
JOHN  BIGELOW,  ESQ. 


86         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

The  person  referred  to  in  Mr.  0  'Conor 's  letter  as  the  special 
object  of  his  solicitude  was  his  father,  then  a  very  old  man, 
upon  whom,  in  the  absence  of  other  closer  family  ties,  all  his 
tenderest  affections  were  concentrated.  The  motion  in  which 
the  provocation  of  this  correspondence  originated  was  an  inci 
dent  of  the  then  famous  suit  pending  between  Edwin  Forrest, 
the  actor,  and  his  wife.  Mr.  Forrest,  never  remarkable  for 
his  self-control,  gave  full  head  to  all  the  vindictiveness  of  his 
nature  in  the  prosecution  of  his  wife,  nor  was  he  content  with 
employing  the  ablest  counsel  to  assist  him  in  hunting  her 
down,  but  he  insisted  upon  their  sharing  or  appearing  to  share 
all  the  hate  and  passion  of  which  his  jealous  nature  was  sus 
ceptible,  and  which  extended  not  only  to  Mrs.  Forrest,  but  to 
all  who  sympathized  with  or  attempted  to  protect  her.  Mr. 
0 'Conor,  therefore,  among  men  was  the  special  object  of  his  de 
testation.  He  had  carried  this  feeling  even  to  personal  outrage. 
To  satisfy  the  feelings  of  his  savage  client,  and  to  extinguish 
any  suspicion  that  he  was  less  brutal  than  the  counsel  of  such 
a  client  with  such  a  victim  was  expected  to  be,  Mr.  Van  Buren, 
as  I  was  afterwards  told  by  one  of  his  friends,  felt  constrained 
to  do  and  to  omit  to  do  many  things,  in  the  course  of  the  trial, 
of  which  neither  his  professional  tact  nor  judgment  could 
approve,  but  which  unhappily  his  sense  of  professional  dig 
nity  and  responsibility  was  not  sufficient  to  prevent.  Thus  the 
hostile  relations  of  the  suitors  gradually  embittered  the  rela 
tions  of  their  counsel  to  such  a  degree  that  the  announcement 
that  a  hearing  in  an  argument  in  which  these  two  gentlemen 
were  to  be  opposed  was  impending,  produced  as  much  of  a 
sensation,  and  drew  as  large  a  crowd,  and  of  much  the  same 
character,  as  a  bull-fight  or  a  cocking  main. 

I  was  assured  by  Mr.  Fowler,  then  postmaster  of  the  city, 
that  the  vituperative  passages  in  Mr.  Van  Buren 's  speech 
complained  of  by  Mr.  0  'Conor  were  all  spoken  word  for  word 
as  printed,  and  as  Mr.  0  'Conor  was  not  present,  it  is  possible 
that  he  was  mistaken  in  saying  that  they  were  not,  although 
the  presumption  is  that  in  preparing  Mr.  Van  Buren 's  speech 
for  the  press  this  part  of  it  may  have  secreted  some  additional 
venom. 

John  Van  Buren  was  the  son  of  a  President ;  from  his  youth 
therefore,  a  pet  of  society.  The  defeat  of  his  father 's  renomi- 
nation  provoked  him  to  become  the  coryphaeus  of  the  Free  Soil 


JOHN  VAN  BUREN'S  POLITICAL  DEMISE         87 

party.  His  birth,  his  accomplishments,  his  wit  and  his  un 
bounded  self-assurance  made  him  unhappily  the  Alcibiades  of 
his  time.  As  an  orator  he  had  a  remarkable  influence  over 
popular  assemblies  as  well  as  in  the  social  or  festive  circle. 
But  to  display  those  talents  seemed  to  satisfy  his  ambition. 
He  was  more  interested  in  what  he  could  make  the  newspapers 
say  about  him  than  what  they  might  say  of  the  cause  or  party 
he  espoused.  He  could  be  very  attractive  when  he  desired  to 
be  and  had  a  limited  number  of  enthusiastic  followers,  but 
they  were  always  required  to  do  more  for  him  than  he  cared  to 
do  for  them. 

His  speeches  attracted  far  more  attention  because  of  the 
offensive  gibes  and  jokes  at  the  expense  of  others  in  which  he 
indulged  than  for  anything  he  showed  an  inclination  to  ap 
plaud.  As  rather  the  most  popular  speaker  of  the  Free  Soil 
party  in  our  State  at  that  time,  and  as  the  Evening  Post  was 
the  only  paper  that  gave  to  his  utterances  the  unlimited  use 
of  its  columns,  I  saw  a  great  deal  of  him  in  those  days  and  of 
course  was  more  or  less  fascinated  by  him.  There  was  just 
sufficient  difference  in  our  ages  to  make  his  inexhaustible 
versatility  on  the  platform  a  succession  of  delightful  surprises. 

But  the  time  was  approaching,  as  it  always  does  to  those 
who  have  no  use  for  the  world  beyond  what  the  world  is  doing 
for  them,  when  Van  Buren  was  to  manifest  to  the  world  that 
it  was  not  so  much  to  preserve  the  freedom  of  the  Territories 
or  even  to  avenge  the  wrong  done  to  his  father  or  the  exclusion 
of  New  York's  representation  from  the  Democratic  Conven 
tion  which  nominated  General  Cass  that  he  became  a  leader  of 
the  forces  in  New  York  opposed  to  the  nationalization  of 
slavery. 

He  supported  for  President  in  1856  Mr.  Buchanan  of  Penn 
sylvania,  who  in  politics  represented  everything  which  the 
Free  Soil  party  had  revolted  from  in  1848  and  everything  that 
was  hostile  to  the  principles  for  which  he  had  himself  labored 
since  those  days.  The  time  had  then  arrived  when  he  desired 
to  be  received  into  the  favor  and  confidence  of  the  new  Presi 
dent,  and,  what  was  of  more  importance,  of  those  from  the 
slave  States  about  the  new  President  who  controlled  him.  In 
this  delusion,  like  his  Greek  prototype,  he  betrayed  his  limita 
tions  as  a  statesman,  his  overweening  estimate  of  his  value  to 
the  new  Administration,  and  his  entire  ignorance  of  the  policy 


88         RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

of  the  camarilla  which  had  selected  a  President  with  an  eye 
single  to  the  enforcement  of  that  policy.1  The  Evening  Post  did 
not  support  Buchanan's  candidature  for  the  Presidency,  nor 
did  it  feel  or  express  any  confidence  in  his  Administration. 
Neither  did  it  criticise  or  in  any  way  reflect  upon  the  course 

1  At  a  meeting  in  Tammany  Hall  Mr.  Lincoln  commended  Horatio  Seymour, 
the  Hunker  candidate  for  Governor  of  New  York,  and  read  the  fol 
lowing  letter  to  William  H.  Seward  from  General  Scott,  which  bears  date 
the  day  before  Lincoln's  inauguration,  and  in  which  the  commander-in- 
chief  of  our  army  recommends  Mr.  Lincoln  to  say  to  the  seceding  States, 
"Wayward  sisters,  depart  in  peace." 

WASHINGTON,  March  3,  1861. 
Dear  Sir: 

Hoping  that  in  a  day  or  two  the  new  President  will  have  happily  passed 
through  all  personal  dangers,  and  find  himself  installed  an  honored  successor 
of  the  great  Washington,  with  you  as  the  chief  of  his  Cabinet,  I  beg  leave 
to  repeat,  in  writing,  what  I  have  before  said  to  you  orally— this  supplement 
to  my  printed  "views"  (dated  in  October  last)— on  the  highly  disordered 
condition  of  our  (so  late)  happy  and  glorious  Union.  To  meet  the  extraor 
dinary  exigencies  of  the  times,  it  seems  to  me  that  I  am  guilty  of  no  arrogance 
in  limiting  the  President's  field  of  selection  to  one  of  the  four  plans  of  pro 
cedure  subjoined: 

I.  Throw  off  the  old  and  assume  a  new  designation — the  Union  party. 
Adopt  the  conciliatory  measures  proposed  by  Mr.  Crittenden  or  the  Peace 
Convention,  and  my  life  upon  it,  we  shall  have  no  new  case  of  secession;  but, 
on  the  contrary,  an  early  return  of  many  if  not  all  the  states  which  have 
already  broken  off  from  the  Union.     Without  some  equally  benign  measure, 
the  remaining  slaveholding  states  will  probably  join  the  Montgomery  Con 
federacy  in  less  than  sixty  days;  when  this  city,  being  included  in  a  foreign 
country,  would  require  a  permanent  garrison  of  at  least  thirty-five  thousand 
troops  to  protect  the  government  within  it. 

II.  Collect  the  duties  on  foreign  goods  outside  the  ports  of  which  the 
government  has  lost  the  command,  or  close  such  ports  by  act  of  Congress 
and  blockade  them. 

III.  Conquer  the  seceded  states  by  invading  armies.     No  doubt  this  might 
be  done  in  two  or  three  years  by  a  young  and  able  general— a  Wolfe,  a 
Desaix,  or  a  Hoche— with  300,000  disciplined  men,  estimating  a  third  for 
garrisons  and  the  loss  of  a  greater  number  by  skirmishes,  sieges,  battles  and 
southern  fevers.     The  destruction  of  life  and  property  on  the  other  side  would 
be  frightful,  however  perfect  the  moral  discipline  of  the  invaders. 

The  conquest  completed  at  that  enormous  waste  of  human  life  to  the  North 
and  Northwest,  with  at  least  two  hundred  and  fifty  million  dollars  added 
thereto,  and  cui  bono?  Fifteen  devastated  provinces!  not  to  be  brought  into 
harmony  with  their  conquerors,  but  to  be  held  for  generations  by  heavy  garri 
sons,  at  an  expense  quadruple  the  net  duties  or  taxes  which  it  would  be  pos 
sible  to  extort  from  them,  followed  by  a  protector  or  an  emperor. 

IV.  Say  to  the  seceded  states— "Wayward  sisters,  depart  in  peace." 
In  haste,  I  remain,  very  truly  yours, 

WINFIELD  SCOTT. 
HON.  WM.  H.  SEWARD,  etc. 


THE  DEATH  OF  JOHN  VAN  BUREN      89 

taken  by  John  Van  Buren  and  such  of  his  friends  as  chose  to 
follow  him  into  the  camp  of  the  nation's  enemies.  This  course, 
instead  of  being  grateful  to  him,  proved  quite  the  contrary, 
for  the  Administration  would  not  trust  a  recreant  from  the 
Free  Soil  party  of  such  conspicuous  proportions,  who  con 
tinued  apparently  to  enjoy  the  friendship  of  their  most  uncom 
promising  adversaries.  To  lay  such  suspicions  and  to  satisfy 
the  Buchanan  Cabinet  that  he  had  not  brought  a  rag  or  even 
the  odor  of  a  single  public  virtue  with  him  into  their  camp, 
Van  Buren  availed  himself  of  an  orgy  in  an  oyster  cellar  in 
Buffalo,  with  the  editor  of  the  Buffalo  Republic  present  to 
assist  him,  and  then  and  there  denounced  the  Evening  Post, 
its  editors  and  their  attitude  toward  the  Administration  in 
terms  which  should  leave  no  room  for  a  doubt  of  his  intention 
to  put  an  end  forever  to  any  suspicion  even  of  any  confidential 
relations  ever  again  subsisting  between  him  and  the  Evening 
Post.  The  day  following  the  arrival  of  the  Buffalo  Republic 
containing  its  account  of  that  speech,  I  inserted  a  brief  article 
at  the  head  of  the  editorial  columns  of  the  Evening  Post,  which 
I  concluded  by  the  remark  that  Mr.  Van  Buren  should  never 
be  embarrassed  by  anything  more  severe  from  the  Evening 
Post  in  future  than  the  absolute  exclusion  of  his  name  from 
its  columns. 

At  the  same  time  I  issued  an  order  to  the  rest  of  our  staff 
that  from  that  day  forth  the  name  of  John  Van  Buren  should 
under  no  circumstances  appear  again  in  the  columns  of  the 
Evening  Post.  In  so  doing  I  felt  that  I  was  in  some  measure 
compelling  him  to  expiate  the  wounds  which,  years  before, 
0  'Conor  and  myself  had  received  at  his  hands. 

I  never  saw  Mr.  Van  Buren  again.  Like  Alcibiades,  he  be 
gan  and  ended  his  career  as  such  favorites  of  fortune  usually 
do.  The  party  he  had  embraced  had  no  use  for  him.  Neither 
had  the  party  he  had  forsaken.  The  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to 
succeed  Mr.  Buchanan  made  of  him  a  political  outcast.  Judge 
William  Kent,  who  was  a  warm  personal  friend  of  both  of  us, 
called  upon  me  one  day  to  speak  of  the  desirability  of  renewing 
our  former  relations.  I  told  him  that  I  had  broken  no  rela 
tions  with  Mr.  Van  Buren;  that  it  was  he  that  had  broken 
them,  so  far  as  they  were  broken,  not  I,  and  of  course  it  was 
his  exclusive  privilege  to  repair  them ;  that  the  Post  never  had 
anything  but  praise  for  him,  and  it  was  not  until  he  acted  as 


90         EETEOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

though  our  friendship  hurt  him  that  we  ordered  that  his  name 
should  no  more  suffer  in  that  way. 

A  few  years  later,  while  I  was  Minister  in  Paris,  Van  Buren, 
who  had  been  wandering  about  Europe  with  his  daughter  in 
pursuit  of  health,  called  at  the  legation  when  I  chanced  to  be 
absent,  and  sat  a  half -hour  or  so  with  Mrs.  Bigelow.  The  next 
day  we  sent  him  an  invitation  to  dine  with  us.  In  reply  we 
received  a  note  informing  us  that  he  and  his  daughter  were 
leaving  on  that  or  the  following  day  for  the  steamer  that  was 
to  take  him  to  the  United  States.  He  died  on  his  passage 
home,  when  for  the  first  time  his  name  reappeared  in  the 
Evening  Post  obituary. 

I  sincerely  mourned  his  death,  for  he  had  so  many  charming 
qualities  and  such  rare  capacities  for  usefulness  in  the  world. 
That  he  never  tried  to  love  his  neighbor  as  himself  I  always 
felt  was  due  largely  to  his  early  environment.  I  still  regret 
that  I  did  not  meet  with  him  in  Paris  and  profit  by  the  oppor 
tunity  of  letting  him  know  that  I  still  was  fond  of  him,  be 
cause,  like  the  favorite  hero  of  the  world's  still  greatest  epic 
poet,  * '  he  was  capable  of  doing  so  many  things  so  well.  ' ' 

When  I  entered  the  firm  of  William  C.  Bryant  &  Co.  the 
printing-press  of  the  Evening  Post  was  worked  by  hand,  and 
even  with  a  circulation  of  only  fifteen  hundred  we  often  missed 
the  mails.  The  Hoes  were,  I  believe,  still  in  the  experimental 
stage  of  their  famous  lightning  presses.  Besides,  our  accom 
modations  in  our  quarters  in  Pine  Street  were  too  restricted 
for  the  use  of  any  other  than  a  hand-press.  In  the  second 
year  of  my  connection  with  the  firm  we  bought  the  capacious 
property  on  the  northwest  corner  of  Nassau  and  Liberty 
streets,  where  we  first  dispensed  with  the  African  Hercules 
who  had  heretofore  run  our  press,  and  to  take  his  place 
secured  from  John  Ericsson,  the  famous  Swedish  mechanician, 
the  very  first  caloric  engine  he  ever  made  for  sale.  Before  a 
year  had  expired,  however,  we  discovered  that  the  engine  was 
an  ingenious  toy,  but  that  we  required,  and  thereupon  duly 
installed,  one  of  the  more  powerful  lightning  engines  of  the 
Hoes. 

Barely  two  months  had  elapsed  since  I  had  made  the  office 
of  the  Evening  Post  my  headquarters,  when  we  received  the 


SUMNER  EMBRACES  THE  FREE  SOIL  PARTY   91 

following  note,  which,  coming  from  the  source  and  at  the  time 
it  did,  encouraged  me  to  suspect  that  our  journal  had  not  been 
prejudiced,  so  far  at  least,  by  my  association  with  it. 


BOSTON,  25  December,  1849. 

MESSRS.  W.  C.  BRYANT  &  Co.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Gentlemen: 

Ever  since  the  meeting  of  the  Buffalo  Convention  I  have  been 
favored  with  the  receipt  of  your  daily  Evening  Post  and  have  been 
gratified  by  reading  what  seems  to  me  the  best  Daily  Journal  in  the 
United  States.  But  it  is  not  fair  that  I  should  be  enjoying  the  fruit 
of  the  labor  of  other  men  without  paying  for  it— I  therefore  beg  you 
to  pass  the  enclosed  $20  to  my  credit  up  to  the  10  August  1850,  being 
the  end  of  the  two  years,  and  to  change  the  direction  of  the  paper  to 
Boston,  instead  of  Quincy,  for  the  winter  season  and  until  otherwise 
ordered. 

It  is  with  no  small  satisfaction  that  I  perceive  the  firm  and  steady 
tone  of  the  Post  through  all  the  changes  and  trials  of  the  time.  The 
more  scarce  such  presses  are,  the  more  should  they  be  cherished  by 
those  who  feel  their  value. 

I  am,  very  respectfully,  Your  ob't.  serv't, 

CHARLES  FRANCIS  ADAMS 


In  the  Presidential  campaign  of  1848,  when  the  Free  Soil 
party  nominated  Martin  Van  Buren  and  Charles  Francis 
Adams  respectively  for  President  and  Vice-President,  a  young 
gentleman  who  was  destined  to  make  as  conspicuous  and  as 
honorable  a  figure  in  public  life  as  any  other  citizen  of  Massa 
chusetts  has  ever  yet  done,  made  his  first  appearance.  His 
name  was  Charles  Sumner.  He  had  been  a  graduate  from 
Harvard  University  with  honors,  had  become  a  member  of  the 
bar,  in  which  he  won  some  distinction  early  as  an  author,  and 
had  recently  returned  from  a  studious  tour  in  Europe,  which 
he  had  turned  to  the  best  advantage.  His  moral  as  well  as  his 
literary  standards  were  all  high,  and  he  naturally  embarked 
in  the  campaign  of  1848,  for  Free  Soil,  Free  Labor  and  Free 
Men,  with  enthusiasm.  The  following  letter  was  the  beginning 


92          RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

of  an  acquaintance  and  friendship  between  us  which  lasted 
through  his  life.  I  shall  have  frequent  occasions  in  these 
pages  of  making  further  use  of  his  correspondence. 


CHAELES  SUMNER  TO  BIGELOW 

BOSTON,  Oct.  18th,  1848. 
Dear  Sir, 

On  my  return  to  town  yesterday  from  a  series  of  meetings 
in  the  Western  part  of  Massachusetts  I  found  your  favor 
in  which  you  propose  to  me  to  speak  in  New  York  on  Thurs 
day  the  19th  instant,  &  request  an  immediate  answer  to 
enable  you  to  make  the  necessary  arrangements  for  the  meet 
ing. 

I  regret  that— failing  to  reply  to  your  letter— I  may  have 
seemed  indifferent  to  the  honor  done  me.  Had  I  been  at 
leisure  &  disengaged,  I  should  have  felt  it  my  duty  to  comply 
with  your  invitation. 

The  time  contemplated  by  you  seems  to  have  now  elapsed,— 
or  rather  it  is  so  near  at  hand  as  to  render  the  necessary  ar 
rangements  impossible,  &  the  calls  upon  me  in  my  own  State 
are  so  absorbing,  that  I  must  at  least  for  the  present  forego 
the  satisfaction  of  addressing  my  fellow  citizens  of  New  York. 

I,  trust  New  York  may  be  carried  for  Van  Buren.  This  must 
be  done.  We  all  count  upon  it. 

Faithfully  Yours 


Shortly  after  I  joined  the  Evening  Post,  some  of  the  junior 
members  of  the  profession  proposed  to  organize  what  we 
chose  to  call  the  Press  Club,  the  first  club  of  the  kind,  I  believe, 
ever  established  in  the  United  States  or  indeed  elsewhere.  Its 
chief  if  not  only  function  was  to  cultivate  social  relations  be 
tween  members  of  the  press,  with  the  remoter  aim  of  measur 
ably  counteracting  the  centrifugal  forces  which  in  those  days 


THE  NEW  YORK  PRESS  CLUB  FOUNDED         93 

were  more  active  than  they  have  become  since  the  ownership 
and  editorship  of  newspapers  have  fallen  into  different  hands, 
and  the  acquiring  of  subscribers  and  advertisements  controls 
their  policy,  more  than  any  desire  to  lead  or  direct  public 
opinion,  which  was  the  chief  function  of  newspapers  during 
the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  In  those  days  the 
editor  was  the  owner  of  the  paper.  Since  then  the  owners  of 
the  newspapers  are  capitalists,  and  editors  are,  for  the  most 
part,  their  salaried  instruments.  The  following  is  a  list  of 
most  if  not  quite  all  of  the  active  members  of  this  Press  Club, 
of  whom  I  am  at  this  writing  the  only  survivor. 

Mr.  Young  of  Albion 

J.  Bigelow  Evening  Post 

C.  A.  Dana  1 

Fry  >  Tribune 

Bayard  Taylor 

George  William  Curtis  Harper's  Magazine 

Richard  Grant  White  N.  Y.  Courier  and  Enquirer 

De  Trobriand  )                         > 

Masseras  5  Couner  des  Etats-Ums 

Henry  J   Raymond  j  ^    T{ 

Charles  Briggs  5 

Sanford  Journal  of  Commerce 

Ph     i      -K~  f  Ex-Editor  of  the  N.  Y.  American  and 

1  then  President  of  Columbia  College 
Richard  Willis  Musical  World 

Willis  Gaylord  Clark          Knickerbocker 


William  H.  Hurlbut 
Frederick  Law  Olmsted 


>  Putnam's  Magazine 


We  had  no  constitution  or  laws.  "We  only  provided  by 
a  unanimous  resolution  that  we  should  dine  together  once  a 
month  on  Saturday  evening  at  the  Astor  House,  and  that  a 
different  member  should  preside  in  the  alphabetical  order  of 
his  name,  and  who  should  send  the  notices  to  the  members  for 
the  meeting  at  which  he  was  to  preside ;  be  absolute  in  his  au 
thority  and  responsible  for  everything  done  or  left  undone  for 
that  evening.  The  dinners  were  always  pleasant,  the  more  so 
for  bringing  together  many  who  were  not  in  the  habit  of  meet 
ing  socially  elsewhere  and  thus  tending  to  soften  the  asperities 
of  controversy,  which  in  those  days  would  not  always  bear  the 


94         BETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

test  which  the  editor  of  one  of  the  papers  represented  at  our 
table  wisely  prescribed  for  himself —never  to  print  anything 
about  any  one  which  would  make  it  unpleasant  for  either  to 
meet  the  same  day  at  dinner :  a  professional  rule  to  which  he, 
at  least,  faithfully  adhered. 

About  all  of  those  dinners  of  which  I  retain  any  distinct 
impression  is  the  fact,  first,  that  the  presiding  officer  was  ex 
pected  to  extort  from  every  member  in  turn  a  speech  in  answer 
to  a  toast— the  only  comfort  we  got  from  this  species  of  tor 
ture  was  in  forgetting  our  own  by  seeing  so  many  others 
undergo  it;  and,  secondly,  that  it  was  my  lucky  privilege  to 
preside  the  evening  that  Thackeray  was  the  guest  of  the  club. 
Thackeray  was  then  delivering  his  Lectures  on  English  Hu 
morists  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  in  New  York,  and  I  was 
careful  to  miss  none  of  them. 

It  was  during  this  visit  of  Thackeray  that  he  told  me  a  story 
without  a  chronicle  of^  which,  the  pathology  of  our  infantile 
literature  would  be  incomplete.  The  brothers  Harper  were 
Thackeray's  publishers  in  America.  In  a  casual  visit  one  day 
at  their  office,  Thackeray  quizzed  the  brother  who  later  became 
our  Mayor,  about  a  superlaudatory  Life  of  Napoleon  Bona 
parte  by  a  Mr.  Abbott  which  the  brothers  were  publishing  in 
parts  and  which  I  was  in  the  habit  of  speaking  of  in  the 
Evening  Post  as  the  Napoleon  romance. 

The  Mayor  replied : '  *  Mr.  Thackeray,  I  once  told  Mr.  Abbott 
I  thought  he  was  laying  it  on  to  Napoleon  pretty  thick.  Abbott 
gravely  replied:  'Mr.  Harper,  I  never  have  taken  my  pen  in 
hand  to  write  a  line  of  that  work  without  first  getting  on  my 
knees  and  appealing  to  the  throne  of  grace  for  light  to  guide 
me.'  What,  Mr.  Thackeray,  could  we  say  after  that! " 


VISIT  TO  THE  ISLAND  OF  JAMAICA 

In  the  evolution  of  the  race  problems  in  the  United  States 
when  I  joined  the  Evening  Post,  we  were  constantly  con 
fronted  with  the  assertion  from  Southern  statesmen  that  the 
negro  was  wholly  unfit  for  liberty,  and  the  British  islands  of 
the  Antilles  were  referred  to  in  proof  of  it.  We  were  also  told 
that  the  island  of  Jamaica  had  gone  back  almost  to  barbarism 


VISIT  TO  THE  ISLAND  OF  JAMAICA  95 

since  the  Emancipation  Act.  I  availed  myself  of  the  first 
vacation  with  which  I  could  indulge  myself  to  probe  that  ques 
tion  a  little  by  a  visit  to  Jamaica.  I  landed  from  the  steamer 
Empire  City  at  Kingston  on  the  eighth  day  of  January,  1850. 

I  spent  about  three  weeks  on  the  island,  during  which  time  I 
had  an  opportunity  of  making  the  acquaintance  of  the  prin 
cipal  officials  and  some  of  the  planters,  and  the  results  of  my 
observations  I  incorporated  in  a  series  of  letters  addressed  to 
the  Evening  Post,  and  which  were  afterwards  published  in  a 
volume  entitled  "Jamaica  in  1850;  or,  The  Effect  of  Sixteen 
Years  of  Freedom  on  a  Slave  Colony. ' ' 

An  edition  of  this  book  sold  very  rapidly  and  attracted  con 
siderable  attention  in  England.  Mr.  Fonblanque,  then  editor 
of  the  Examiner,  had  three  articles  about  it,  which  he  em 
ployed  with  effect  in  defence  of  the  English  policy  of  emanci 
pation,  adopted  only  sixteen  years  before. 

On  my  return  from  Jamaica  I  was  prevented  from  going  to 
visit  my  parents  some  two  weeks,  owing  to  the  interruption  of 
navigation  by  ice,  there  being  in  those  days  no  railroad  on  the 
west  shore  of  the  Hudson.  When  I  did  finally  go,  my  elder 
brother  Edward  came  down  for  me  in  a  sleigh  to  Pough- 
keepsie,  where  the  ice  was  still  firm,  and  drove  me  to  Maiden, 
thirty  miles  distant  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river. 

The  night  of  my  arrival  my  father  sat  up  with  me  after  the 
other  members  of  the  family  had  retired,  a  couple  of  hours 
longer  than  usual,  to  hear  of  my  experiences  in  the  West  Indies 
and  of  my  business  prospects.  He  usually  retired  at  nine 
o'clock.  It  was  after  eleven  that  night  when  we  separated. 
The  morning  of  the  following  day  broke  for  us  in  great  gloom, 
for  on  leaving  his  bed  he  was  seized  with  vertigo  and  would 
have  fallen  to  the  floor  but  for  the  accidental  presence  of  my 
brother  David,  who  caught  him  in  his  arms  and  helped  him 
back  into  his  bed.  After  resting  a  while,  however,  he  appeared 
in  the  breakfast-room,  but  looking  very  haggard,  and  com 
plained  of  headache.  This  headache  left  and  returned  at  inter 
vals  all  that  day,  but  the  intervals  continued  to  grow  shorter 
until  it  returned  as  often  as  every  two  or  three  minutes,  when 
coma  supervened,  and  he  passed  away  on  the  following  day. 

A  physician  with  whom  I  conferred  about  his  illness  in 
formed  me  that  when  he  was  taken  he  fell  from  a  pressure  of 


96          RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

blood  upon  the  brain,  and  that  it  forced  a  very  small  hole 
through  the  covering  of  the  brain,  into  which  it  slowly  and 
drop  by  drop  exuded,  the  relief  from  the  headache  only  com 
ing  when  the  blood  had  passed. 

I  remember  as  it  were  yesterday  the  feeling  that  had  pos 
session  of  me  almost  exclusively  during  the  two  or  three  days 
following  the  funeral  that  elapsed  before  my  return  to  the 
city.  I  was  strangely  overwhelmed  with  the  consciousness 
that  the  support  upon  which  I  had  been  leaning  all  my  life 
with  absolute  confidence  was  gone,  and  that  I  was  practically 
alone  in  the  world,  with  no  one  to  look  to  for  the  assistance 
and  counsel  upon  which  I  had  been  so  long  accustomed  to  rely. 
This  feeling  was  aggravated  by  a  sort  of  surprise  that  I  had 
never  seriously  anticipated  such  a  prospect  before.  I  think  I 
aged  more  in  these  three  days  than  in  any  previous  three 
years  of  my  life.  I  had  just  reached  an  age  when  we  could 
have  conferred  with  each  other,  not  as  a  boy  with  a  man,  but 
as  man  with  man,  with  entire  confidence  and  for  the  first  time 
on  practically  equal  terms. 

I  am  sorry  that  I  did  not  know  my  father  better,  for  when 
I  say  that  I  think  he  was  a  rather  remarkable  man  I  do  not 
suspect  my  judgment  of  him  to  have  been  much  warped  by 
filial  affection.  I  was  but  eleven  years  old  when  I  left  home 
for  school,  never  to  return  to  it  again  except  for  my  vacations, 
weddings  or  funerals.  His  natural  endowments  were  quite 
extraordinary,  and  had  he  enjoyed  half  the  educational  ad 
vantages  he  gave  to  me,  he  would  probably  have  had  a  by  no 
means  inconspicuous  place  in  our  history.  Without  being  in 
the  least  austere,  he  was  a  man  of  great  personal  dignity.  He 
seemed  to  have  been  endowed  from  his  birth  with  the  sovereign 
faculty  of  ruling.  Starting  with  no  advantages  except  a  pro 
found  reverence  for  and  faith  in  the  Bible,  with  a  frame  of 
prodigious  proportions— he  was  full  six  feet  four  in  height— 
and  unusual  constitutional  vigor  which  he  never  consciously 
abused,  he  led  a  contented,  happy  and  useful  life  to  the  ripe 
age  of  seventy-one.  He  succeeded  in  every  enterprise  that  he 
embarked  in,  I  believe,  whether  for  himself  or  the  public,  and 
left  an  estate  the  value  of  which  was  estimated  by  his  heirs  at 
between  seventy  and  eighty  thousand  dollars,  which  was  about 
the  amount  of  worldly  estate  left  by  Dr.  Franklin,  who  lived 
twelve  or  fifteen  years  longer.  Neither  found  it  insufficient. 


BECOME  ACQUAINTED  WITH  MISS  POULTNEY  97 

A  month  or  two  before  I  sailed  for  Jamaica  I  was  present  at 
a  dancing-party—it  was  hardly  large  enough  to  be  called  a  ball 
—at  the  residence  of  the  late  Judge  Smith  of  Long  Island, 
whose  wife  was  a  sister  of  the  late  Mrs.  A.  T.  Stewart.  Among 
the  guests  was  a  Mrs.  Cornelius  W.  Lawrence,  wife  of  the 
mayor  of  that  name,  and  one  of  my  most  cordial  friends.  Dur 
ing  the  evening  she  presented  me  to  a  Miss  Poultney,  origi 
nally  of  Baltimore  but  then  residing  with  her  widowed  mother 
and  one  of  her  uncles  in  New  York.  Mrs.  Lawrence  spoke  of 
this  young  lady  as  one  of  her  greatest  favorites,  and  whom 
she  said  she  expected  me  to  admire.  I  had  no  difficulty  in  com 
plying  with  her  wishes. 

The  result  was  that  Miss  Poultney  and  I  were  married  in 
Baltimore  on  the  llth  of  June  following,  after  a  courtship  of 
barely  four  months.  She  was  a  woman  of  notable  beauty  and 
social  charm.  Her  family  deemed  our  courtship  rather  brief, 
but  there  seemed  to  be  no  occasion,  on  my  part  at  least,  for 
prolonging  it.1  What  I  owed  to  her,  besides  the  children  who 
have  been  the  principal  joy  and  comfort  of  my  life,  I  could 
not,  nor  would  I  if  I  could,  express  in  words.  It  is  due  to  her 
memory,  however,  if  I  say  anything,  to  express  my  conviction 
that  without  her  my  career  in  the  world  would  not  only  have 
been  very  different  from  what  it  was,  but  far  less  satisfactory 
to  myself  and  to  others. 

As  my  income  from  the  Evening  Post  was  then  barely 
$2500  a  year,  my  wife  and  I  boarded  part  of  the  first  year  at  a 
house  in  Fourth  Street  and  part  of  the  time  in  Fourteenth 
Street,  at  a  house  a  few  doors  from  the  residence  of  Mayor 
Havemeyer.  In  the  course  of  a  casual  conversation  one  day 
with  the  late  David  D.  Field  in  "Wall  Street,  with  whom  and  his 
family  I  had  social  as  well  as  professional  relations,  he  ad 
vised  me  to  do  as  he  when  he  married  had  done— to  buy  a 
house  judiciously  in  a  quarter  where  it  was  sure  to  advance  in 

1Here  I  recall  an  incident  which  I  put  into  a  note  merely  to  show  that  I 
never  suspected  it  of  contributing  in  any  degree  to  abridge  the  period  of  our 
courtship. 

As  I  was  about  leaving  the  steamer  on  my  return  from  Jamaica,  the 
steward  brought  me  a  jug  containing  about  two  gallons  of  turtle  soup  which 
had  not  been  consumed  and  which  he  would  be  pleased  to  have  me  accept. 
As  I  was  still  a  bachelor  living  at  a  hotel,  I  hesitated  for  a  moment,  not  know 
ing  what  I  could  do  with  it;  but  only  for  a  moment,  for  it  happily  occurred 
to  me  that  the  family  of  Miss  Poultney  would  appreciate  it.  Later  I  received 
ample  assurance  that  they  did. 


98         RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

value  (and  that,  he  intimated  correctly,  was  then  almost  any 
house  and  anywhere  within  the  city  limits),  and  thus  live  rent- 
free.  To  my  reply  that  I  had  no  money  to  invest  in  real  estate, 
he  said,  "You  will  need  very  little  in  your  position,  and  your 
house  ought  to  rise  in  value  fast  enough  in  a  few  years  to  pay 
its  cost  and  interest/' 

It  curiously  happened  that,  on  my  return  to  my  wife  that 
evening,  she  told  me  of  a  friend  of  hers  who  was  just  about 
leaving  a  house  in  Twenty-second  Street,  just  opposite  the 
then  residence  of  Clement  C.  Moore,  our  "Night  Before 
Christmas"  poet,  and  belonging  to  one  of  the  professors  in 
the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  which  we  might  rent  or  buy. 
The  next  day  I  visited  the  house  and  ascertained  that  it  was  a 
very  comfortable  two-story-and-attic  house,  extremely  well 
built,  in  an  unobjectionable  neighborhood,  only  a  few  steps 
from  the  Ninth  Avenue  omnibus  service.  I  bought  it,  with  the 
privilege  of  paying  for  it  as  fast  as  I  pleased  in  sums  of  not 
less  than  $500. 

There  we  began  keeping  house,  and  lived  very  happily  until 
the  year  1856,  when  the  arrival  of  children  rendered  me  impa 
tient  for  a  residence  in  the  country.  With  the  proceeds  from 
the  sale  of  my  town  house  I  bought  the  country  place  now 
known  as  The  Squirrels,  at  Highland  Falls-on-Hudson,  then, 
however,  afflicted  with  the  plebeian  denomination  of  "Butter 
milk  Falls." 

An  unfortunate  speech  of  Daniel  Webster  in  defence  of  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law  proved  a  terrible  shock  to  his  devoutest 
friends  in  Massachusetts.  Sumner  was  the  only  one  of  the 
sons  of  Jesse  who  had  the  courage  to  encounter  this  Goliath  of 
the  Whig  party  in  single  combat,  which  he  did  with  the  final 
success  of  Goliath's  protagonist. 


SUMNER  TO  BIGELOW 

BOSTON,  May  22nd,  '50. 
My  dear  Sir, 

I  am  glad  you  wrote  to  me.  I  had  already  read  the  Post,  & 
enjoyed  very  much  the  unrolling  of  that  mummy  before  I  re 
ceived  yr  letter. 


WEBSTER'S  ANTISLAVERY  MEMORIAL  99 

Only  a  week  ago  in  overhauling  old  pamphlets,  a  part  of  my 
patrimony,  I  found  the  actual  memorial  to  Congress  reported 
by  the  Committee  of  which  Mr.  Webster  was  chairman;  &  I 
determined  to  send  it  to  you,  on  reading  your  article  this 
morning. 

I  have  also  examined  the  files  of  Boston  papers  at  the  Athe 
naeum,  &  enclose  a  memorandum  from  them  which  may  be 
interesting. 

The  Memorial  is  reputed  to  be  the  work  of  Mr.  Webster. 
The  close  is  marked  by  his  clear  &  cogent  statement.  Why  it 
was  not  preserved  in  the  collection  of  his  Opera,  which  was 
first  published  10  or  15  years  later,  I  know  not.  Perhaps  he 
had  already  seen  that  he  might  be  obliged,  in  the  pursuit  of  his 
ambition,  to  tread  some  steps  backward,  &  he  did  not  wish  to 
have  a  document  like  this,  accessible  to  all,  in  perpetual  mem 
ory  of  his  early  professions. 

If  you  follow  him  up  on  this  point,  read  in  this  connexion 
the  latter  part  of  his  Plymouth  Address,  the  earliest  of  his 
Orations  in  the  published  volume.  At  this  time  he  seemed  to 
have  high  purposes. 

I  wonder  that  the  noble  passage  about  the  Ordinance  in  his 
first  speech  in  the  Hayne  controversy  has  not  been  used 
against  his  present  tergiversation. 

Here  is  another  document  which  might  be  used  effectively 
against  him ;  the  Address  of  the  Mass.  Anti-Texas  State  Con 
vention  in  Jan.  1845,  the  first  half  of  which  was  actually  com 
posed  by  Mr.  Webster,  partly  written  &  partly  dictated.  In 
this  he  takes  the  strongest  ground  against  the  constitutionality 
of  the  resolution  of  annexation. 

Here  followed  his  speech,  Dec.  22nd,  '45,  in  the  Senate 
against  the  admission  of  Texas  with  a  slave-holding  constitu 
tion.  If  the  faith  of  the  country  was  pledged,  as  he  now  says 
it  was,  by  those  resolutions,  when  they  were  acceptedby  Texas, 
he  was  obliged,  according  to  his  present  argt.  about  the  4 
States,  to  vote  for  her  admission  with  or  without  slavery.  But 
his  vote  stands  Nay. 

But  it  would  be  a  large  work  to  expose  his  shiftless  course 
— "every  thing  by  starts,  &  nothing  long."  Mr.  Leavitt,  of 
the  Independent,  talks  of  taking  him  in  hand,  &  exposing  the 
double-dealings  of  his  life.  I  wish  he  might  do  it  through  the 
Post. 


100        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

I  cannot  forbear  expressing  the  sincere  delight  with  which 
I  read  yr  paper.  Its  politics  have  such  a  temper  from  litera 
ture,  that  they  fascinate  as  well  as  convince. 

Believe  me,  my  dear  Sir, 

Very  faithfully  Yours 

P.S.  When  you  have  done  with  the  pamphlet,  please  return  it. 
Of  the  Committee  who  reported  it,  George  Blake,  now  dead, 
was  a  leading  republican,  Josiah  Quincy  Federalist,  late 
Presdt  of  Harv.  Col.,  James  T.  Austin  republican,  late  Atty 
Genl.  of  Mass.  &  John  a  lawyer,  who  died  soon  after,  but  of 
whom  there  are  most  grateful  traditions  in  the  profession. 

I  admired  particularly  the  article  on  Webster,  written 
shortly  after  the  speech.  It  must  have  been  done  by  Mr.  Dix 
—Aut  Erasmus,  aut  Diabolus! 


SUMNEE  TO  BIGELOW 

BOSTON,  May  25th,  '50. 
My  dear  Sir, 

Thanks  for  your  note.  I  am  glad  that  my  communication 
was  so  timely. 

I  have  never  seen  a  complete  pedigree  of  Webster's  opinion 
on  Slavery.  If  I  were  writing  a  leader  to  introduce  his  me 
morial  to  Congress  it  seems  to  me  I  should  set  it  forth  in  this : 

1st  Meeting,  report  &  speech  at  State  House  1819 

2nd  Memorial  to  Congress  1819 

3d   Plymouth  rock  1820 

4th  Hayne  Controversy  1830 
1st  speech— 

[beautiful  passage] 

5th  Niblo's  Garden  1837 
[extract] 

6th  letter  against  annexation  of  Texas,  I  think  in  '44,  ad 
dressed  to  people  in  Worcester 

7th  Anti-Texas  State  Address— Jan.  1845 
[extract] 


WEBSTER'S  SUPPRESSED  DOCUMENTS         101 

8th  Speech  in  Faneuil  Hall  Nov.  1845 

[I  send  extract] 

9th  Speech  in  Senate  against  admission  of  Texas  with  slave- 
holding  constitution  [extract]  Dec.  22d,  1845 
10th  Springfield 

["my  thanks"]  Oct.  '47 
llth  Against  Clayton 

Compromise— -Aug.  '48 
[extract] 

Such  a  string  of  testimony  would  be  enough  to  hang  even 
a  greater  traitor  than  Danl.  Webster. 

The  feud  among  the  democrats  here  is  widening.  The 
Hunkers  have  at  last  aroused  the  long-suffering  country  sec 
tion,  who  are  desirous  of  free-soiling,  as  they  express  it,  their 
decayed  party.  The  [Boston]  Post  squad  will  be  left  to  go 
about  their  business.  The  best  democratic  leaders  in  Mr.  Pal 
frey's  district  are  friendly  to  him,  &  sympathize  strongly  with 
our  movement.  Mr.  Banks,  who  would  have  been  their  candi 
date,  is  working  for  Palfrey. 

Faithfully  yours 


SUMNER  TO  BIGELOW 

BOSTON,  June  8th,  '50. 
My  dear  Sir, 

I  have  been  too  remiss  with  regard  to  your  note. 

I  cannot  promise  myself  the  time  to  handle  Webster  as  I 
should  desire  if  I  put  my  hand  to  the  work.  His  course  in 
creases  in  abominations.  His  late  votes  expose  him  to  the 
rebuke  of  his  former  self. 

On  looking  at  the  first  vol.  of  Webster's  Speeches,  contain 
ing  his  Literary  Addresses,  Arguments,  Eemarks,  Documents 
&c.  I  find  that  the  collection  begins  with  the  Plymouth  Address 
of  1820.  But  strange  to  relate !  it  commences  on  the  25th  page 
of  the  vol.  The  preceding  pages  desiderantur.  In  short  some- 


102        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

thing,  originally  printed  here,  has  been  suppressed.  What 
was  it?  Can  it  have  been  the  Anti-Slavery  Beport?  Look  at 
the  vol. 

Faithfully  Yrs 


My  dear  Sir, 


SUMNEE  TO  BIGELOW 

BOSTON,  June  19th,  1850. 


It  seems  to  me  that  both  Webster  &  Cass  have  prepared  the 
way  for  leading  forward  the  Danl.  Webster  of  1829— 

"Mr.  Cass  said  he  considered  Mr.  Soule's  amendment  a 
mere  work  of  supererogation,  having  no  more  effect  than  a 
provision  declaring  that  there  shall  be  a  President  of  the 
United  States.  He  alluded  to  the  position  taken,  this  morning, 
by  Mr.  Seward,  saying  that  he  had  never  before  supposed  it 
possible  that  there  was  any  man  here  who  denied  the  very  first 
principles  of  our  government,  that  a  State  has  a  right  to  decide 
for  itself  its  municipal  institutions,  and  such  decision  should 
be  no  cause  for  its  rejection;  but  as  that  had  here  been  denied 
this  morning,  he  would  vote  for  the  amendment,  because  he 
was  desirous  of  putting  himself  on  record,  in  rebuke  of  such 
an  assertion  as  that  made  by  Mr.  Seward. " 

In  your  testimony  against  Webster  on  the  Quakers  yester 
day,  you  omitted  Whittier's  very  emphatic  article  in  the  Era 
two  weeks  ago. 

Don't  fail  to  read  what  Webster  says  in  both  his  speeches  in 
reply  to  Hayne  in  1830— vindicating  the  ordinance. 
Very  faithfully  yrs 


SAMUEL  ATKINS  ELIOT  103 

SUMNEE  TO  BIGELOW 

BOSTON,  Sept.  2nd,  '50. 
My  dear  Sir, 

Various  engagements  have  prevented  me  from  sooner 
answering  your  favor  of  Aug.  8th ;  &  now  I  do  it  most  imper 
fectly.  I  had  hoped  to  write  a  thorough  notice  of  the  forth 
coming  Diary  &  Auto-Biography  of  John  Adams ;  but  I  had 
not  time. 

I  send  you  a  little  bibliographical  introduction  to  a  series  of 
excerpts.  Of  all  this  matter  use  only  what  you  see  fit,  & 
precisely  as  you  see  fit. 

You  enquire  about  Eliot.1  He  is  an  honest  &  obstinate  man ; 
but  essentially  Hunker  in  grain.  In  other  days  &  places  he 
would  have  been  an  inquisitor.  He  dislikes  a  democrat,  &  also 
a  Free  Soiler  as  the  gates  of  Hell ;  still  he  is  not  without  indi 
vidual  sympathies  for  the  slave.  I  doubt  if  he  can  be  a  tool ; 
besides  personally  he  has  little  confidence  in  Webster. 

The  attack  here  is  just  now  most  bitter  upon  Horace  Mann. 
The  substance  of  his  note  they  cannot  answer ;  but  they  have 
diverted  attention  from  it  by  charging  him  with  personal- 

lln  December,  1908,  I  addressed  a  note  to  Charles  Francis  Adams,  Jr., 
asking  who  this  Eliot  was,  and  "what  relation,  if  any,  to  the  retiring  Presi 
dent  of  Harvard,  or  anybody  else  about  whom  I  am  likely  to  know  anything?" 
Mr.  Adams  on  the  following  day  sent  me  this  reply: 

"In  answer  to  your  inquiry  I  would  say  that  the  'Eliot'  in  question  was 
almost  certainly  Samuel  Atkins  Eliot,  the  father  of  President  Charles  W. 
Eliot. 

"The  dictionary  of  Congress  will  set  me  right,  but  my  recollection  is  that 
S.  A.  Eliot  was  in  1850  elected  a  Representative  from  one  of  the  Boston 
districts.  He  was  a  devoted  follower  of  Webster,  and  is  remembered  solely 
by  the  fact  that  he  alone  of  all  the  Massachusetts  Representatives  voted  for 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  He  was  a  highly  respectable,  most  worthy  man 
personally,  but  not  large-minded,  and  a  confirmed  Union-saver;  devoted  per 
sonally  and  politically  to  Mr.  Webster. 

"In  1850,  when  you  received  that  letter  from  Sumner,  Webster  had  just 
entered  the  State  Department,  in  Fillmore's  Administration.  Eliot  pre 
sumably  was  just  elected  to  Congress  from  Boston,  in  place  probably  of 
Winthrop,  who  succeeded  Webster  in  the  Senate.  You  wrote  to  Sumner, 
not  then  prominent  in  public  life,  to  advise  you  as  to  the  new  Congressman. 

"Your  letter  to  Sumner,  to  which  his  was  in  reply,  is  undoubtedly  among 
the  Sumner  letters  in  the  library  at  Harvard  University." 


104        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

ities,  &  then  by  criticism  of  his  classical  criticism  of  Webster. 

Now  in  this  matter  two  things  are  to  be  said : 

1st,  Webster  was  the  first  offender  in  personalities ;  & 
2ndly,  Webster  is  clearly  wrong  in  the  classical  matter.    Of 

this  I  have  no  doubt.    If  occasion  occurs,  can  you  give  Mann 

a  helping  word? 

I  hope  to  get  away  today  from  Boston  to  Newport,  &  to  be 

in  New  York  at  the  end  of  the  week,  when  I  shall  try  to  see  you. 

I  am  curious  about  things  in  N.  Y. 

Yours  very  faithfully 


SUMNEB  TO  BIGELOW 

BOSTON,  Oct.  4th,  1850. 
My  dear  Sir, 

When  at  the  office  of  the  Evng  Post  a  few  days  ago— where 
I  was  sorry  not  to  find  you  &  more  sorry  for  the  melancholy 
cause— I  was  told  that  you  had  reed,  an  elaborate  paper  on 
captationes  Verborum  which  you  could  not  publish  till  after 
Congress  adjourned. 

I  know  nothing-  of  the  document  in  question ;  but  if  it  sus 
tains  Mann,  as  I  inferred  it  did— &  indeed  it  must  substan 
tially,  if  written  by  an  unprejudiced  scholar— I  wish  to  say 
that  its  publication  might  be  of  service  to  him,  much  belabored 
as  he  is  by  Webster  &  his  crew. 

This  is  clear  to  me— that  there  was  no  set  of  critics  in 
classical  times,  so  denominated— which  is  Mr.  Webster's  as 
sertion.  Nor  does  the  phrase  occur  in  classical  times. 

I  am  also  inclined  to  believe  that  the  use  of  the  term  Capta- 
lin  as  a  Snatcher  or  Seizer  is  not  correct. 

This  is  a  trifle ;  but  it  has  been  made  the  occasion  here  for 
considerable  discussion,  &  has  been  a  convenient  excuse  for 
diverting  attention  from  the  political  questions  in  issue. 

Our  Free  Soil  Convention  was  very  spirited.  The  resolu 
tions  are  pungent,  &  cover  our  original  ground.  On  this  we 
shall  stand  to  the  end. 

I  rejoice  in  the  rent  in  New  York  Whiggery.     If  the 


SUMNER  AND  WEBSTER  SENATORIAL  CONTEST   105 

barnburners  &  Sewardites  were  together,  there  would  be  a 
party,  which  would  give  a  new  tone  to  public  affairs. 
Let  me  call  your  attention  to  Mr.  Phillips '  letter. 

Very  faithfully  Yrs 


SUMNER  TO  BIGELOW 

Private 

BOSTON,  Jan.  llth,  '51. 

11  o'clk  A.M. 
My  dear  Sir, 

Whatever  may  be  the  result  of  our  proceedings,  I  am  de 
sirous  that  you  should  know  my  position. 

I  have  never  directly  or  indirectly  suggested  a  desire  for  the 
place,  or  even  a  willingness  to  take  it.1  I  shall  not  generally  be 
believed  if  I  say,  I  do  not  desire  it.  My  aims  &  visions  are  in 
other  directions,  in  more  quiet  fields.  To  sundry  Committees 
of  Hunker  Democrats,  who  have  approached  me,  to  obtain 
pledges  &  promises  with  regard  to  my  future  course  in  the 
State  or  in  the  Senate,  if  I  should  go  there,  I  have  replied  that 
the  office  must  seek  me,  not  I  the  office,  &  that  it  must  find  me 
an  absolutely  independent  man. 

The  Hunkers,  Whig  &  Democrat,  are  sweating  blood  to-day. 
You  perceive  that  all  the  Hunker  press,  representing  Cassism 
&  Websterism,  are  using  every  effort  to  break  up  our  combi 
nation. 

I  have  never  thanked  you  for  your  book  on  Jamaica.  My 
friend  Hillard,  who  borrowed  it  of  me,  returned  it  this  morn 
ing,  saying  that  it  was  one  of  the  best  books  he  had  read. 
Much  of  it  I  had  already  read  in  the  Post,  &  I  am  glad  to 
possess  it  in  its  present  form. 

Believe  me,  my  dear  Sir, 

Ever  faithfully  Yours , 


1  The  Free-Soilers  of  Massachusetts  had  begun  to  talk  of  Sumner  as  suc 
cessor  to  Webster,  whose  term  as  Senator  was  about  to  expire. 


106       BETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 
SUMNER  TO  BIGELOW 

Private 

BOSTON,  Jan.  21st,  '51. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

I  regret  your  illness,  for  your  own  comfort,  &  also  because 
I  like  to  know  that  you  are  on  the  watch-tower. 

In  pending  matters  I  have  no  personal  interest ;  &  my  object 
in  writing  you  before  was,  that  you  might  understand  my  posi 
tion,  not  in  any  way  to  promote  my  election.  Our  cause  here, 
&  throughout  the  country,  may  be  staked  somewhat  upon  my 
present  success.  But  I  assure  you  ex  pectore  I  have  no  per 
sonal  disappointments.  I  do  not  desire  to  be  senator. 

You  are  right  in  auguring  ill  from  the  Fabian  strategy. 
This  alone  saved  Hunkerdom.  Had  the  balloting  taken  place 
in  the  same  week  with  that  for  Governor,  our  success  would 
have  been  certain.  When  it  was  postponed  for  three  days  I 
thought  our  friends  had  lost  the  chances.  My  own  opinion 
now  is  that  they  are  lost  beyond  recovery.  But  others  do  not 
share  this.  The  leading  Democrats,  who  undertook  to  carry 
the  arrangement  through,  are  sanguine.  Several  towns  on 
Monday  instructed  their  representatives  to  vote  for  the  reg 
ular  candidate. 

On  Wednesday  the  Senate  will  vote.  On  Thursday  the 
House  return  to  th«  task. 

The  pressure  from  Washington  has  been  prodigious.  Web 
ster  &  Cass  have  both  done  all  they  could.  Of  course  Boston 
Whiggery  is  aroused  against  me.  There  were  for  several  days 
many  uneasy  stomachs  at  the  chances  of  my  success. 

The  prick  has  been  just  this.  I  would  not  in  any  way  con 
sent  to  be  used  by  the  Hunkers.  Four  different  Committees 
called  upon  me— one  simply  asked  me  to  meet  a  few  Democrats 
to  confer  with  them— another  proposed  a  conference  with 
Genl.  Gushing  &  told  me  that  he  had  already  called  on  me 
twice— another  wished  me  to  say  that  in  the  Senate  I  would 
devote  myself  to  the  foreign  politics !— &  another  wished  some 
assurance  that  I  would  not  agitate  the  subject  of  Slavery.  To 
all  these  I  had  one  answer— that  I  did  not  seek  the  office— & 


SUMNER  AND  WEBSTER  SENATORIAL  CONTEST   107 

that,  if  it  came  to  me,  it  must  find  me  an  absolutely  independ 
ent  man.  I  declined  to  have  any  political  conversation  with 
Genl.  Gushing.  Before  this  time,  in  caucus,  he  had  spoken,  as 
I  have  been  told,  warmly  for  me. 

It  is  very  evident  that  a  slight  word  of  promise  of  yielding 
to  the  Hunkers  would  have  secured  me  election.  It  would  now, 
if  I  would  give  it.  But  this  is  impossible. 

The  charge  used  with  most  effect  against  me  is  that  I  am  a 
Disunionist;  but  the  authors  of  this  know  its  falsehood.  It  is 
all  a  sham  to  influence  votes.  My  principles  are  in  the  words 
of  Franklin  "to  step  to  the  verge  of  the  Constitution  to  dis 
courage  every  species  of  traffic  in  human  flesh. ' '  I  am  a  Con 
stitutionalist  &  Unionist,  &  have  always  been. 

Long  ago  I  promised  Mr.  Dunlap  to  write  a  notice  of  his 
edition  of  his  father 's  book  on  Admiralty  for  the  Post.    Many 
things  have  prevented  me  from  even  looking  at  the  book ;  but 
I  will  try  to  do  it  at  once  &  send  it  to  you. 
Ever  faithfully  Yours 

B.  H.  Dana  Jr.  left  yesterday  for  New  York,  where  he  is  to  be 
a  couple  of  days.  He  said  he  should  call  on  you.  He  will  tell 
you  of  our  affairs. 


SUMNEE  TO  BIGELOW 

Private 

BOSTON,  Jan.  27th,  '51. 
My  dear  Sir, 

I  put  under  cover  to  Bryant  &  Co.  a  small  note  to  you. 
Our  friends  are  still  sanguine ;  &  I  happen  to  know  that  their 
anticipations  are  confirmed  by  Whigs.  A  leading  Boston 
Hunker  Whig  (Mr.  William  Appleton,  M.C.)  said  last  Satur 
day  that  he  thought  that '  '  Mr.  S.  would  be  elected. ' '  His  wish 
was  not  father  to  the  thought. 

But  I  do  not  make  myself  a  party  to  these  anticipations  or 
aspirations. 

Yr  Boston  correspondent  seems  to  have  some  lurking  per 
sonal  discontent.    He  is  all  wrong. 

Ever  faithfully  yrs 


108        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 
SUMNEE  TO  BIGELOW 

BOSTON,  May  2nd,  '51. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

Let  me  first  rejoice  with  you  in  the  infant  Astyanax  of  your 
house.  Believe  me  that  I  sympathize  cordially  in  this  happi 
ness—although  I  am  a  "  bachelor  " !  I  trust  that  Mrs.  Bigelow 
is  strong  as  becomes  the  mother  of  such  a  boy. 

Yr  greetings,  which  were  among  the  earliest  I  received, 
were  particularly  grateful;  &  Mr.  Bryant's  brief  Appendix  re 
inforced  even  yr  full  letter.  The  whole  made  me  proud  of  the 
confidence  I  received.1 

I  would  not  affect  a  feeling  which  I  have  not,  nor  have  I  any 
temptation  to  do  it,  but  I  should  not  be  frank  if  I  did  not  say 
to  you,  that  I  have  no  personal  joy  in  this  election.  Now  that 
the  office  is  in  my  hands  I  feel,  more  than  ever,  a  distaste  for 
its  duties  &  struggles  as  compared  with  other  spheres.  Every 
heart  knoweth  its  own  secret,  &  mine  has  never  been  in  the 
Senate  of  the  U.  S. ;  nor  is  it  there  yet. 

Most  painfully  do  I  feel  my  inability  to  meet  the  importance 
which  has  been  given  to  this  election,  &  the  expectation  of  en 
thusiastic  friends.  But  more  than  this  I  am  impressed  by  the 
thought  that  I  now  embark  on  a  career  which  promises  to  last 
for  six  years,  if  not  indefinitely,  &  which  takes  from  me  all 
opportunity  of  study  &  meditation,  to  which  I  had  hoped  to 
devote  myself.  I  do  not  wish  to  be  a  politician. 

But  I  have  said  too  much  of  this  already.  For  the  present  I 
must  try  to  be  content. 

Eantoul  &  Palfrey  will  be  elected;  perhaps,  Bishop  in  the 
Berkshire  District.  Should  all  this  occur  our  Massachusetts 
delegation  will  be  very  strong  in  the  House.  Nothing  but 
Boutwell's  half-Hunkerism  prevents  us  from  consolidating  a 
permanent  party  in  Massachusetts,  not  by  coalition,  but  by 
fusion  of  all  who  are  truly  liberal,  humane  &  democratic.  He 
is  in  our  way.  He  has  tried  to  please  Hunkers  &  Free  Soilers. 
We  can  get  along  very  well  without  the  Hunkers,  &  should  be 
happy  to  leave  Hallett  &  Co.  to  commune  with  the  men  of 
State  St. 

1  Simmer's  election  to  succeed  Webster  in  the  United  States  Senate. 


E.  L.  GODKIN'S  PROPOSAL  109 

The  latter  have  been  infinitely  disturbed  by  the  recent  elec 
tion.  For  the  first  time  they  are  represented  in  the  Senate  by 
one  over  whom  they  have  no  influence,  who  is  entirely  inde 
pendent,  &  is  a  "  bachelor "!  It  was  said  among  them  at  first 
that  real  estate  had  gone  down  25  per  cent ! 

I  regret  the  present  state  of  thought  in  New  York,  because 
it  seems  to  interfere  with  those  influences  which  were  grad 
ually  bringing  the  liberals  &  White-Slavery  men  of  both  the 
old  parties  together.  Your  politics  will  never  be  in  a  natural 
state  till  this  occurs. 

I  sympathize  much  in  the  opposition  to  the  debt,  as  a  viola 
tion  of  the  Constitution;  but  I  regret  that  the  question  has 
come  to  arrest  the  Slavery  discussion.  I  am  confident  that  the 
latter  has  a  basis  in  the  hearts  &  consciences  of  the  people, 
which  will  make  it  a  truer  platform  than  any  other,  connected 
as  it  must  be  with  all  that  is  liberal,  &  in  a  just  sense 
democratic. 

Yr  Hunker  allies,  I  fear,  will  be  false,  as  is  their  nature,  to 
wards  your  candidates. 

On  the  4th  page  of  the  Commonwealth  of  to-day  is  a  part  of 
a  speech  of  K.  H.  Dana  Jr.,  which,  like  every  thing  from  him, 
seems  to  me  most  felicitous  in  its  clear  simple  diction. 

Eemember  me  kindly  to  Mr.  Bryant,  with  many  thanks  for 
those  words,  &  believe, 

Ever  Sincerely  Yours 


Private 

The  following  message  came  to  me  a  few  weeks  ago  from 
Mr.  Soule,  Senator  from  Louisiana : 

"Mr.  Soule  sends  his  salutations  to  Mr.  S.  &  hopes  he  will 
be  elected.  He  desires  to  see  a  senator  from  Massachusetts 
whose  opinions  he  knows. " 


Shortly  after  the  close  of  the  Crimean  War  we  occasionally 
received  articles  upon  European  affairs  from  a  gentleman 


110       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

whom  we  knew  only  as  the  aforetime  special  correspondent  of 
the  London  Daily  News.  The  following  letter  from  him  led  to 
my  first  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Edwin  L.  Godkin,  and  to  my 
forming  with  him  a  friendship  for  life,  little  dreaming  in  those 
days,  however,  that  he  was  destined  at  no  very  distant  day  to 
be  one  of  my  successors  in  the  editorial  management  of  the 
Evening  Post. 


E.  L.  GODKIN  TO  BIGELOW 

Private 

82  Broadway. 
Friday  [about  1850]. 
Dear  Sir: 

There  is  a  great  number  of  subjects  coming  under  the  head 
of  "social  science, "  such  as  labour,  charity,  taxation,  ex 
change,  insurance,  the  province  of  governments,  and  a  hun 
dred  others  that  will  readily  suggest  themselves  to  you,  which 
there  is  no  means  of  discussing  with  any  care,  &  which  are 
very  imperfectly  understood.  I  might  add  free  trade  &  the 
various  questions  arising  out  of  it— to  the  number.  There  is 
in  this  city,  &  in  fact  in  this  country,  no  means  of  getting  a 
hearing  upon  them,  for  any  one  who  gives  them  any  thought 
ful  consideration.  The  Post  has  done  more  for  them  than  any 
newspaper,  but  no  newspaper  can  do  much.  The  legislature 
does  still  less,  as  few  of  the  legislators  have  ever  thought  on 
any  question  in  their  lives. 

Would  it  not  be  possible  to  get  up  an  association  for  their 
discussion,  somewhat  like  that  for  the  "Advancement  of 
Social  Science, "  which  Lord  Brougham  recently  inaugurated 
in  England,  but  possibly  with  a  larger  melange  of  statistics 
than  that  is  likely  to  have?  I  belonged  to  an  association  of  this 
kind  before  coming  to  this  country,  and  as  I  feel  a  deep  inter 
est  in  most  of  these  questions,  would  be  glad  to  see  one  formed 
here. 

I  am  still  so  much  of  a  stranger  in  New  York  that  I  hardly 
like  to  do  anything  which  would  wear  the  appearance  of  taking 
the  initiative  in  the  matter.  But  possibly  you  can  say  what 
you  think  of  the  scheme,  &  whether  you  would  feel  disposed  to 
aid  in  carrying  it  out. 


MOSES  SHEPPARD  AND  COLONIZATION        111 

I  am  writing  under  the  impression  that  you  know  who  I  am, 
and  consequently  dispense  with  the  ceremony  of  an  intro- 
duction.  Iam 

Yours  truly 


Early  in  the  fifties  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  Moses  Shep- 
pard  of  Baltimore,  a  wealthy  Friend,  whose  conscientious  sym 
pathy  for  the  African  had  led  him  to  associate  himself  more  or 
less  actively  with  the  operations  of  the  Colonization  Society, 
an  organization  which  attracted  many  of  the  people  of  the 
slaveholding  States  who  had  allowed  themselves  to  doubt 
whether,  like  the  beasts  of  the  field,  bondage  was  the  only  con 
dition  for  which  the  negroes  were  providentially  designed. 

Prompted,  I  suppose,  by  the  appearance  of  my  "Jamaica  in 
1850, ' '  of  which  I  had  sent  him  a  copy,  he  sent  me  some  pam 
phlets  on  Colonization.  This  led  me  to  send  him  a  statement 
of  my  notions  of  the  impracticability  of  any  such  solution  of 
that  or  of  any  other  racial  problem.  In  a  few  days  I  received 
from  him  a  note  enclosing  a  letter  from  John  H.  B.  Latrobe,  at 
that  time,  I  think,  president  of  the  Colonization  Society  and 
one  of  the  most  esteemed  citizens  of  Baltimore,  suggested  by 
mine  to  Mr.  Sheppard. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  delusions  which  God  sends  to  all 
who  try  to  compromise  questions  of  conscience  or  of  justice, 
his  letter  has  historical  value.  No  conflagration  has  ever  yet 
been  extinguished  by  silencing  the  alarm-bell.  The  Civil  War 
was  soon  to  prove  that  this  was  to  be  no  exception;  that- not 
deportation  of  our  brother,  nor  calling  him  "thou  fool,"  but 
accommodation  while  in  the  way  with  him,  was  the  oldest  and 
still  the  only  way  of  solving  the  African  problem. 


John  Bigelow 

I  have  availed  myself  of  a  source  of  information  superior 
to  my  own  to  answer  the  enquiries  in  thy  letter  of  the  7  inst.— 
John  H.  B.  Latrobe,  Esq.,  Pres't  of  the  Maryland  Colonization 
Society,  has  at  my  solicitation  addressed  to  me  the  enclosed 


112       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

statement  which  I  hope  will  be  satisfactory.  Any  farther  in 
formation  of  which  I  can  be  the  medium  or  source  will  be 
willingly  afforded.  MosEg  SHEPPAMX 

In  reading  "  Jamaica  in  1850 "  I  made  some  notes.  If  I  can 
borrow  a  hand  to  copy  them,  perhaps  I  may  send  them  on. 

BALTIMORE.  12  2mo.  1851. 


SENATOR  PEESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  Feb.  24, 1851. 
D ear  Sir: 

You  know  I  have  been  all  the  time  for  Col.  Benton  &  for  no 
body  else  for  President  or  at  any  rate  for  my  candidate.  He 
declines  to  be  a  candidate.  He  has  thought  of  it  and  decides 
not  to  be.  He  expects  to  recover  Missouri.  He  is  opposed  to 
a  national  convention  and  prefers  that  Congress,  whose  mem 
bers  have  some  direct  responsibility  to  the  people,  should 
decide  who  shall  be  president,  rather  than  an  irresponsible 
combination  in  a  National  Convention.  He  is  in  favor  of 
separate  State  action  as  the  best  means  of  presenting  candi 
dates  and  of  ultimately  concentrating  the  popular  vote,  if  that 
can  be  done.  And  he  is  in  favor  of  Woodbury  as  the  best  of 
the  candidates  who  have  been  named  to  the  public,  deeming 
some  national  reputation  desirable  if  not  necessary  to  success. 
If  we  could  with  confidence  calculate  upon  strength  to  elect 
Col.  Benton  I  would  never  consent,  for  one,  that  he  should  be 
out  of  the  field— but  we  cannot  do  so— and  the  Col.  therefore 
has  a  right  to  decide.  If  he  is  not  to  be  successful  as  a  candi 
date,  his  decision  is  wise  and  just  to  himself  &  to  his  future 
fame.  He  is  an  old  Hero. 

There  is  no  concentration  of  opinion  or  any  thing  else  here 
—and  we  have  nothing  in  the  way  of  news.  Give  my  respects 
to  that  good  wife  who  makes  you  a  happy  man. 

Yours  truly 

My  lame  knee  is  doing  well,  tho  it  holds  me  to  my  bed  &  will 
for  2  or  3  weeks  more. 


Charles  Simmer 


Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow 


MAROT'S  BALLAD  ON  FRIAE  LUBIN  113 

SUMNEB  TO  BIGELOW 

BOSTON,  March  17th,  '51. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

I  send  you  Marot's  ballad1  on  the  other  Friar  Lubin— a  dif 
ferent  character  from  our  friend. 

I  also  send  a  passage  from  Ld.  Holland's  recent  book,  which 
I  have  read  since  we  parted.  You  can  make  it  the  germ  of  an 
article  on  the  Secretary.  The  passage  on  the  indemnity, 
understood  by  me,  gives  pungency  to  the  parallel. 

Have  you  sent  the  letter  to  Mrs.  Haven? 

The  story  of  Philopoemen  in  Plutarch  is  quite  to  the  pur 
pose. 

Yr  Ld  Bacon  article  has  been  admired  here. 

I  did  not  return  till  Saturday  night.  Our  friends  are  in  dis 
order.  What  will  become  of  them  I  cannot  tell.  I  have  told 
them  most  explicitly  to  drop  me  at  any  moment,  without  notice 
or  apology,  &  have  offered  peremptorily  to  withdraw. 

The  treachery  among  some  of  the  Hunkers  who  have  voted 
for  me  is  base.  They  might  have  carried  the  election  at  the 
last  trial.  After  I  was  with  you  on  Tuesday,  I  dined  with 
Bancroft.  I  asked  him  point  blank,  if  he  had  any  desire  to  go 
again  into  politics.  He  assured  me  most  unequivocally  that 
his  first  desire  was  to  finish  his  history,  &  that  he  would  not 
touch  politics  till  that  was  finished— say  six  years  from  now. 
His  wife  also  assured  me  that  such  was  his  plan.  I  mention 
this  because  I  think  you  had  an  impression  the  other  way. , 

Ever  Yrs 

*In  my  early  days  of  journalism  I  was  in  the  habit  of  publishing  in  the 
Evening  Post,  weekly,  what  purported  to  be  reports  of  the  interviews  of 
"Friar  Lubin"  with  a  Jersey  ferryman,  who  picked  up  and  reported  to  the 
Friar  the  political  gossip  he  was  presumed  to  have  heard  from  the  members 
of  Congress  and  their  friends  on  their  passage  over  the  river  to  and  from 
Washington.  It  was  a  disguise  that  enabled  me  to  say  many  things  of  interest 
to  politicians  which  it  would  hardly  be  practicable  to  publish  under  respon 
sible  auspices.  The  appropriation  of  Friar  Lubin's  name  led  to  an  inquiry 
from  Sumner  if  I  borrowed  it  from  Marot's  ballad.  My  answer  to  his 
inquiry  led  to  his  sending  me  the  ballad  of  Marot  and  calling  my  attention 
to  the  excellent  translation  of  it  made  by  Longfellow,  which  I  have 
thought  it  worth  while  to  append,  mainly  because  of  the  merits  ascribed  to 


114        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 
SUMNEE  TO  BIGELOW 

BOSTON.  March  28th  [1851]. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

Uncertainty  still  hangs  over  the  senatorial  question.     I  do 
not  see  the  end.    Others  may. 

the  translation  by  Simmer,  who  wrote  on  the  copy  of  the  original  verses: 
"There  is  a  spirited  translation  of  the  ballad  by  Longfellow  which  may  be 
found  in  the  Poets  and  Poetry  of  Modern  Europe." 

FEIAR  LUBIN 

To  gallop  off  to  town  post-haste, 

So  oft,  the  times  I  cannot  tell; 
To  do  vile  deed,  nor  feel  disgraced,— 

Friar  Lubin  will  do  it  well. 
But  a  sober  life  to  lead, 

To  honor  virtue,  and  pursue  it, 
That's  a  pious,  Christian  deed,— 

Friar  Lubin  cannot  do  it. 

To  mingle,  with  a  knowing  smile, 

The  goods  of  others  with  his  own, 
And  leave  you  without  cross  or  pile, 

Friar  Lubin  stands  alone. 
To  say  't  is  yours  is  all  in  vain, 

If  once  he  lays  his  finger  to  it; 
For  as  to  giving  back  again, 

Friar  Lubin  cannot  do  it. 

With  flattering  words  and  gentle  tone, 

To  woo  and  win  some  guileless  maid, 
Cunning  pander  need  you  none,— 

Friar  Lubin  knows  the  trade. 
Loud  preacheth  he  sobriety, 

But  as  for  water,  doth  eschew  it; 
Your  dog  may  drink  it,— but  not  he; 

Friar  Lubin  cannot  do  it. 

Envoy 

When  an  evil  deed  's  to  do, 
Friar  Lubin  is  stout  and  true; 
Glimmers  a  ray  of  goodness  through  it, 
Friar  Lubin  cannot  do  it. 


ARTICLES  ON  SPARKS  115 

The  articles  on  Sparks1  have  seriously  damaged  his  books. 
Some  of  his  friends  complain  of  harshness.  This  is  to  be 
found  in  some  Boston  commentators,  rather  than  in  the 
Friar's  original  exercitation. 

The  article  defending  him  in  the  Cambridge  Chronicle  was 
by  George  Livermore,  one  of  the  best  bibliographers  of  the 
country,  a  merchant,  fond  of  books,  author  of  the  late  article 
in  the  North  American  on  Public  Libraries. 

Seward  &  Stanton  seized  Webster's  thunder  in  New  York. 
We  will  shame  those  soi-disant  Unionists  yet. 

Ever  Yours 


While  John  Van  Buren  was  still  true  to  Free  Soil  and  Free 
Labor  he  sent  the  following  note  enclosing  a  letter  from  his 
father,  which  is  likely  to  have  escaped  the  attention  which  it 
merits  from  the  present  and  preceding  generation. 


My  dear  Bigelow: 

I  enclose  a  draft  letter  of  my  father's  to  Chicago.  Please 
publish  it  if  you  think  best  with  such  remarks  (if  any)  as  you 
think  proper. 

It  was  written,  you  see,  more  than  a  month  since  &  shows 
with  what  accuracy  a  right  minded  man  could  predict  what 
has  happened  &  is  still  to  come. 

Come  to  Tammany  Hall  tonight.  I  speak  if  my  life  is 
spared. 

Truly  yours, 

J.  VAN  BUREN 
In  Court,  Oct.  18th,  1852. 

1  Articles  on  the  Sparks  edition  of  the  correspondence  of  Washington  with 
Read,  which  Friar  Lubin  now  admits  he  treated  with  rather  less  than  due 
reverence  for  the  editor,  because  of  the  frequent  liberties  Mr.  Sparks  pre 
sumed  to  take  with  the  letters  of  Washington. 


116        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 


MARTIN  VAN  BUREN  TO  THE  YOUNG  MEN'S  CLUB  OF  CHICAGO 

LlNDENWALD, 

September  14,  1852. 
Gentlemen: 

I  ought  to  have  made  an  earlier  acknowledgement  of  the  receipt  of 
your  obliging  letter  enclosing  a  Resolution  of  the  Democratic  Union 
Club  of  Chicago,  but  a  farmer's  life  and  advanced  age  are  not  favour 
able  to  punctuality  in  such  matters. 

My  best  thanks  are  due  to  your  associates  &  yourselves,  as  well  for 
the  compliment  you  have  bestowed  upon  me,  as  for  the  kind  terms  in 
which  it  is  expressed.  The  value  of  your  good  opinion  is  not  a  little 
increased  in  my  estimation,  by  your  being  a  portion  of  the  Democracy 
of  a  State  which,  though  young  in  years,  had  already  become  old  in  the 
support  of  democratic  principles,  &  the  purity  and  sincerity  of  whose 
politics  I  have  never  for  a  moment  ceased  to  respect  and  admire. 

The  political  party  against  which  you  have  enlisted  your  youthful 
energies,  with  a  zeal  that  does  you  much  honor,  is  powerful  in  its  num 
bers,  the  means  at  its  disposal,  &  in  its  partisan  tact.  But  a  long  ex 
perience  has  shewn,  that  these  can  all  be  overcome  with  proper  exer 
tions  on  our  part.  There  is  besides  much  in  the  present  condition 
of  our  opponents  which  is  calculated  to  strengthen  your  confidence. 

The  subject  of  Slavery,  which,  from  the  general  concurrence  of 
opinion  between  the  slave-holding  states  and  the  Democracy  of  the 
North  on  other  matters,  our  opponents  have  always  heretofore  been 
able  to  turn  against  us,  with  great  effect,  has  now,  by  their  own  con 
sent,  been  withdrawn  from  the  canvass.  That  of  a  Tariff  imposing 
duties  for  the  purpose  of  protection,  out  of  which  they  have  heretofore 
made  successful  use  in  these  parts,  has  been  too  thoroughly  and  too 
justly  exploded  in  public  opinion  to  be  of  much  service  to  them  now. 
The  extensive  embarrassments  in  the  business  concerns  of  individuals, 
and  in  the  finances  of  the  Government,  which  were  a  few  years  since 
brought  upon  the  Country,  and  the  panic  in  the  public  mind  which 
they  produced,  presented  the  most  prolific  subject  for  the  exercise  of 
their  political  skill.  By  efforts  equally  extraordinary  and  debasing, 
they  induced  a  majority  of  the  people  of  the  U.  States,  intelligent  & 
patriotic  as  they  are,  to  hold  their  own  Government  responsible  for 
results  which  were  the  consequences  of  their  own  improvidence,  stimu 
lated  to  madness  by  reckless  Bank  issues.  In  the  midst  of  such  scenes, 
when  men  are  so  easily  tempted  to  lay  the  fruits  of  their  own  rash 
ness  at  the  doors  of  others,  &  when  party  clamours  applied  to  the 
business  of  men  find  such  ready  access  to  their  bosoms,  they  succeeded 


A.D.  1782 


Martin  Van  Buren 

Eighth  President  of  the  United  States 


A.D.  1862 


MARTIN  VAN  BUREN'S  LETTER  117 

in  overthrowing  an  administration  of  the  Federal  Government  for  sup 
porting  a  measure  which  in  a  brief  period  by  the  force  of  its  intrinsic 
merits  silenced  the  cavils  of  its  opponents,  &  has  since  through  the  good 
sense  &  good  feelings  of  all  parties  been  raised  to  an  eminence  in 
public  favour  which  even  party  spirit  dare  not  approach  with  hostile 
intentions. 

The  times  have  happily  changed  and  the  condition  of  the  Country 
has  changed  with  them.  Thanks  to  the  returning  good  sense  & 
prudence  of  our  people  concurring  in  the  judgements  of  enlightened 
statesmen  in  other  countries,  bank  inflations,  &  the  impositions  of 
taxes  in  the  shape  of  duties  to  ensure  a  portion  of  the  people  against 
the  casualties  of  trade,  at  the  expense  of  the  rest,  have  been  placed  or 
are  being  placed  under  the  ban  of  public  opinion  in  the  most  enlight 
ened  &  commercial  countries  in  the  world.  The  native  energies  of  our 
citizens,  unfettered  by  vicious  legislation,  have  been  employed  in 
bringing  into  successful  operation  the  vast  resources  of  our  country, 
and  ours  has  become  a  land  of  unequalled  prosperity  &  plenty. 

The  influence  of  military  achievements  over  the  minds  of  men  in  the 
selection  of  their  civil  officers,  is  another,  &  if  we  may  judge  from 
their  three  last  Presidential  nominations,  the  greatest  reliance  of  the 
Whig  party.  It  is,  I  think,  quite  certain  that  this  infatuation  can  no 
longer  be  made  avoidable.  So  far  from  aiding  Gen  1  Scott,  the  attempt 
to  revive  it  is  destined  to  have  a  contrary  effect.  Recitals  of  his  mili 
tary  achievements,  which,  when  made  with  no  sinister  designs,  filled 
the  hearts  &  minds  of  our  people  with  feelings  of  gratitude  and  delight, 
will  now  be  listened  to  by  sober-minded  men  with  suspicion,  as  designed 
to  mislead  them  in  the  bestowment  of  their  votes.  In  the  present 
awakened  state  of  public  feeling  upon  the  subject,  but  few  will  be 
found  so  feeble  in  intellect  as  not  to  see  through  the  artifice,  or  so  poor 
in  spirit  as  not  to  spurn  it.  Gen  '1  Scott  will,  in  all  probability,  be  de 
feated,  and  the  fact  that  an  infatuation  which  was  supposed  to  have 
carried  two  military  candidates  into  the  Presidential  chair,  exploded  in 
the  case  of  a  third,  who  was  infinitely  their  superior  in  everything  that 
constituted  the  soldier  &  Hero,  will  be  regarded  as  a  striking,  not 
to  say  a  melancholy  instance  of  the  folly  and  the  mischief  of  calcula 
tions  founded  on  such  delusions. 

Our  opponents  being  thus  deprived  of  their  accustomed  aid  from 
topics  heretofore  so  stirring  and  effectual,  and  evidently  at  fault  in 
the  invention  of  substitutes,— staggering  also  under  the  effects  of  the 
intense  alarm  in  the  public  mind  occasioned  by  the  startling  corrup 
tions  which  have  crept  into  their  administration  of  so  many  branches 
of  the  public  service,  and  left  without  anything  to  screen  them  against 
the  odium  which  has,  for  more  than  half  a  century,  rested  upon  their 
politics,  it  will  be  the  fault  of  the  Democracy  themselves  if  they  do 
not  give  them  an  old  fashioned  rout. 


118        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Our  skies  are  bright.  Our  union  is  complete.  Our  candidates 
could  scarcely  be  more  acceptable.  The  assaults  which  have  been 
made  upon  Genl.  Pierce  have  but  recoiled  upon  their  authors.  Our 
hopes  are  moreover  built  upon  the  irrepressible  energies  of  a  Party 
which  has  a  stable  foundation  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  &  which, 
unlike  that  of  our  adversary,  has  always  been  in  good  odour  with  them : 
a  party  which  has  been  but  thrice  defeated  in  fifty  years,  in  Presiden 
tial  elections,  &  then  only  through  divisions  in  its  own  ranks,  or  an 
unnatural  state  of  the  public  mind  which  we  may  well  hope  never  to  see 
again:  a  party  which  even  on  those  occasions,  the  moment  an  oppor 
tunity  was  afforded  to  bring  the  causes  of  its  temporary  discomfiture 
to  the  test  of  a  more  mature  reflection,  rose  again  to  power  as  its 
natural  position. 

It  was  both  honest  &  wise  in  you  to  enrol  yourselves  under  the  broad 
banner  of  such  a  party  and  every  enterprising  young  man  who 
desires  honorable  distinction  in  public  life  &  to  make  himself  useful 
in  his  day  &  generation  should  do  likewise. 

That  your  labours  in  the  Democratic  Cause  may  be  crowned  with 
success,  &  that  prosperity  &  happiness  may  attend  all  the  members  of 
your  club  is  the  earnest  wish  of 

Your  friend  &  obed'nt  Servt. 


My  dear  Bigelow, 


SUMNEE  TO  BIGELOW 

BOSTON,  June  6th,  '51. 


Mr.  Ticknor's  book  is  a  good  dictionary  of  Spanish  litera 
ture  ;  but  he  is  utterly  incompetent  to  appreciate  the  genius  of 
Spain.  He  can  not  look  at  it  face  to  face.  Besides,  his  style  is 
miserably  dry  &  crude. 

As  a  politician  here  he  is  bitter  &  vindictive  for  Webster, 
from  whom  lie  hopes  a  Foreign  Mission. 

I  enjoyed  Van  Buren's  speech  infinitely.  Well  as  he  has 
done  before,  he  never  did  better. 

I  am  sad  at  Palfrey's  defeat.  He  deserved  success,  &  his 
friends  worked  well;  but  Hunker  money,  &  his  own  former 
course  against  the  Coalition  caused  the  result. 

Ever  Yrs 


VICTOR  HUGO  AND  LESURQUES  119 

SUMNEE  TO  BIGELOW 

BOSTON,  June  28th,  '51. 
Dear  Bigelow, 

Be  sure  to  read  all  of  Victor  Hugo's  speech,  to  which  you 
refer  today.  You  will  find  it  in  La  Presse  of  June  12th.  My 
copy  has  taken  wings,  or  you  should  have  it. 

If  the  name  of  Lesurques,  with  which  Hugo  closes,  awakens 
in  you  no  more  echo  than  in  me,  look  it  out  in  the  Supplement 
to  the  Biographic  Universelle  &  you  will  read  a  long  story  of 
Judicial  murder.  It  is  strange  that  this  was  not  quoted  in 
Dr.  Webster's  case,  to  frighten  court  &  jury. 

Hugo's  speech  contains  a  true  &  eloquent  reference  to  the 
1  '  law  of  laws, ' '  which  is  above  all  human  laws. 

The  New  York  Herald  is  disposed  to  count  me  among  par- 
tizans  of  Genl.  Scott.  In  no  way,  directly  or  indirectly,  am  I 
connected  with  that  movement ;  nor  do  I  see  any  probability  of 
its  ever  taking  such  a  form  as  to  embrace  those  with  whom  I 
act.  I  rejoice  in  the  comparative  success  of  the  Liberal  Cause 
in  the  Whig  Convention  of  Penn.  &  am  amused  by  the  squirm- 
ings  of  the  Websterites.  That  subscription!  A  nomination 
by  subscription  will  never  be  tried  again ! 

Ever  Yours 


SUMNEB  TO  BIGELOW 

BOSTON,  July  10th,  '51. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

The  name  is  Lesurques— mind  the  spelling,  &  you  will  find 
it  in  the  Supplement  to  the  Biographie  Universelle.  The  ar 
ticle  there  will  be  new  &  interesting. 

Fillmore,  it  seems  to  me,  will  be  the  Whig  candidate.  He 
will  enter  the  Convention  with  Southern  support,  while  Web 
ster's  friends,  in  anger  with  Scott,  will  sustain  him. 

Scott  hardly  seems  to  me  a  possibility. 

What  will  Seward  say  to  his  colleague's  "acquiescence"  in 
the  compromise  measures  ? 


120       KETKOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

I  join  you  in  admiration  of  Victor  Hugo.  His  genius,  as 
writer  or  speaker,  is  admirable. 

I  am  struck  with  your  reading  of  the  Scott- Whig  horoscope ; 
&  yet  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  some  of  the  Whigs  really  be 
lieve  Scott  will  be  nominated— like  Campbell's  " prevailing 
poet,"  who 

" Believed  the  magic  wonders  that  he  sang." 

I  commend  to  you  the  politics  of  the  Commonwealth  news 
paper.  No  other  paper  in  Boston  is  comparable  to  it  in  mat 
ter.  Ever  Yrs 


SUMNEE  TO  BIGELOW 

Private 

BOSTON,  Oct.  24th,  '51. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

I  heard  of  your  illness  while  I  was  in  N.  Y.  with  great  regret. 
Time  &  distance  did  not  allow  me  to  see  you  at  yr  suburban 
retreat,  although  I  wished  very  much  to  confer  with  you,  par 
ticularly  on  the  subject  of  yr  letter. 

Let  me  say  frankly,  however,  that  I  despair  of  any  arrange 
ment  by  which  any  candidate  can  be  brought  out  on  the  Dem 
ocratic  side,  so  as  to  receive  active  support  from  An ti- Sla 
very  men.  Nor  do  I  see  much  greater  chance  on  the  Whig 
side.  The  tendency  of  both  the  old  parties  at  present  is  to 
National  Conventions ;  &  in  both  of  these  our  cause  will  perish. 

The  material  for  a  separate  organization,  by  which  to  sus 
tain  our  principles,  seems  to  exist  nowhere  except  in  Massa 
chusetts.  Had  the  Barnburners  kept  aloof  from  the  Hunkers 
in  1849,  the  Democratic  split  would  have  been  complete 
throughout  the  Free  States,  &  it  would  have  affected  sympa 
thetically  the  Whig  party.  A  new  order  of  things  would  have 
appeared,  &  the  beginning  of  the  end  would  have  been  at  hand. 
But  the  work  in  some  way  is  to  be  done  anew.  There  will  be 
no  peace,  until  the  Slave  Power  is  subdued.  Its  tyranny  must 
be  overthrown,  &  Freedom,  instead  of  Slavery,  must  become 
the  animating  idea  of  the  National  Govt.  But  I  see  little  chance 
of  any  arrangement  or  combination  by  which  this  truly  demo 
cratic  idea  can  be  promoted  in  the  next  Presidential  contest. 


SUMNER  AND  COLONEL  BENTON  121 

The  politicians  are  making  all  their  plans  to  crush  us,  &  they 
seem  to  be  succeeding  so  well,  that  all  our  best  energies  &  most 
unflinching  devotion  to  principles  can  alone  save  us.  For  my 
self,  I  see  no  appreciable  difference  between  Hunker  Democ 
racy  &  Hunker  Whiggery.  In  both  all  other  questions  are  lost 
in  the  "single  idea"  of  opposition  to  the  Free  Soil  Sentiment. 
Nor  can  I  imagine  any  political  success,  any  party  favor,  or 
popular  reward,  which  would  tempt  me  to  compromise  in  any 
respect  the  independent  position  which  I  now  hold. 

It  is  vain  to  try  to  get  rid  of  this  question  of  the  Slave- 
Power,  except  by  victory  over  it.  And  our  best  course,  it 
seems  to  me,  is  to  be  always  ready  for  the  contest. 

But  I  am  a  practical  man,  &  desire  to  act  in  such  way  as 
best  to  promote  the  ideas  which  we  have  at  heart.  If  you  can 
shew  me  the  road  I  am  ready  to  follow. 

I  found  at  Washington  among  the  people  connected  with 
the  Union  great  bitterness  to  Col.  Benton,  &  a  determination 
to  cut  off  any  Presidential  candidate  favored  by  him.  They 
were  not  aware  of  his  sympathies  with  Col.  Butler. 

Buchanan  &  his  friends  are  sanguine  that  "Old  Buck"  will 
be  Presdt ;  but  they  add  that  if  it  is  not  he,  it  will  be  Butler. 
Their  support  would  frighten  me. 

I  see  no  hope  in  any  quarter.  The  two  years  before  us  will 
be  crucial  years — years  of  the  Cross.  But  I  know  that  better 
times  will  soon  come.  For  God's  sake !  stand  firm. 

I  hope  John  Van  Buren  will  not  allow  himself  to  be  en 
meshed  in  any  of  the  tempting  arrangements  for  mere  po 
litical  success.  He  is  so  completely  committed  to  our  cause 
that  he  can  hope  for  nothing  except  by  its  triumph.  I  know  no 
one  who  has  spoken  a  stronger  or  more  timely  word  f or,  us 
than  he  has.  I  am  much  attached  to  him  personally,  I  admire 
his  abilities  &  am  grateful  for  what  he  has  done;  but  I  feel 
that,  if  he  would  surrender  himself  more  unreservedly  to  the 
cause,  he  would  be  more  effective  still.  Few  have  such  powers. 

I  wish  I  had  seen  you  to  talk  of  these  things ;  for  I  cannot 
write  all  I  should  like  to  say,  nor  do  I  feel  that  I  have  ade 
quately  responded  to  yr  letter.  Let  me  hear  from  you  soon. 
I  am  anxious  about  the  movement,  &  hope  for  the  best. 

Believe  me, 

Ever  Sincerely  Yours 


122       KETKOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 


SUMNEE  TO  BIGELOW 

BOSTON,  Nov.  25th,  '51. 

Tuesday. 
Dear  Bigelow, 

Hawthorne  has  just  come  to  Boston  from  his  country  re 
treat,  &  has  answered  my  letter  by  a  call.  He  says  that  if  he 
wrote  for  any  paper  he  should  prefer  yours,  for,  so  far  as  he 
knows  his  own  politics,  they  are  nearer  the  Evening  Post  than 
any  thing  else ;  but  he  has  nothing  ready,  &  he  doubts  whether 
a  tale  from  him  would  properly  cut  up  for  newspapers,  be 
sides,  if  it  did,  it  would  lose  its  freshness,  so  that  its  success  in 
a  volume  might  be  interfered  with,  &  he  evidently  looks  to  the 
latter  as  a  source  of  emolument. 

Sometime  ago  he  refused  $500  from  the  Tribune  for  one  of 
his  tales. 

His  address  for  sometime  will  be  West  Newton,  Mass., 
where  you  might  renew  your  application  directly  by  letter,  if 
you  saw  fit. 

My  purpose  is  to  leave  Boston  Wednesday  afternoon  &  to 
reach  N.  Y.  Thursday  morning.  Now  I  desire  much  to  see  you 
&  John  Van  Buren,  on  my  way,  to  talk  affairs.  I  shall  write 
to  ask  him  to  dine  with  me  at  Delmonico's,  where  I  shall  stop, 
at  5  o  'elk,  &  hope  you  will  do  the  same.  There  will  be  nobody 
else,  &  we  will  be  by  ourselves.  I  know  it  is  Thanksgiving 
Day ;  but,  as  he  has  no  family  &  you  are  still  young  in  this  rela 
tion,  perhaps  I  may  be  able  to  secure  you  both.  Let  me  know, 
if  you  can  dine  with  me,  by  note  addressed  to  me  at  Del- 
monico's,  or  by  Telegraph  to  Boston  Wednesday  morning. 

Ever  Yours 


P.S.    What  prodigious  talent  Kossuth  shews  in  England ! 
P.S.     The  Coalition  has  carried  the  State,  &,  as  the  Whigs 
made  the  issue  on  my  election,  you  see  one  of  the  consequences. 


KOSSUTH'S  MISTAKE  123 


SUMNER  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON, 

Dec.  13th,  '51. 
Dear  Bigelow, 

Kossuth  errs— all  err— who  ask  any  intervention  by 
GOVT.  Individuals  may  do  as  they  please,  stepping  to  the 
verge  of  the  law  of  nations,  but  the  Govt.  cannot  act. 

Depend  upon  it,  you  will  run  against  a  post,  if  you  push  that 
idea. 

Enthusiast  for  Freedom,  I  am  for  every  thing  practical,  but 
that  is  not  practical. 
Think  of  this. 

Ever  Yrs 


SUMNEE  TO  BIGELOW 

SEN.  CHAMBEE, 

Dec.  27th  [1851]. 
Dear  Bigelow, 

Bring  out  that  passage  about  Webster  in  the  2nd  vol.  of 
Story's  Life— about  1842,  &  translate  the  Greek.  It  will  tell. 

Cull  also  from  the  vols.  the  passages  on  the  importance  of  a 
Northern  Spirit,  &  against  *  *  doughfaces. ' '  In  the  Index,  under 
the  head  of  "Slavery,  its  influence  on  the  North "  or  something 
like  this,  you  will  find  a  key  to  them.  They  will  make  a  telling 
column.  Don't  forget  this.  They  are  very  pertinent  to  our 
days. 

Eead  the  criticism  on  the  Prigg  case. 

The  fate  of  Foote's  resolutions  is  uncertain,  &  I  am  uncer 
tain  what  to  do  about  them.  I  wish  sometime  during  the  ses 
sion  to  declare  myself  fully  on  the  subject ;  but  I  am  not  clear 
that  this  is  the  time.  I  should  rather  do  it  later. 

I  feel  that  Kossuth  has  made  a  great  mistake.  By  asking 
too  much,  he  has  missed  a  great  opportunity  of  impressing  the 
country. 

Ever  Yrs 


124       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 


SUMNEB  TO  BIGELOW 

SENATE  CHAMBER, 

Monday '[1852]. 
Dear  Bigelow, 

On  inquiry  I  learn  that  the  Hayti  Correspondence  has  not 
yet  been  reed  at  the  Senate  Chamber. 

Tomorrow  for  Webster !    The  South  would  never  give  him 
their  votes.     Look  for  their  voices. 

To-day  has  exposed  the  pettiness  of  the  old  parties  in  ex 
cluding  Hill,  Chase  &  myself  from  committees. 

Ever  Yrs 


SUMNEE  TO  BIGELOW 

SEN.  CHAMBER, 

Feb.  3d,  '52. 
Dear  Bigelow, 

What  you  say  of  Marcy  &  his  chances  is  like  dropping  the 
iron  curtain.  I  will  hope  for  something  better. 

It  seems  to  me  not  improbable  that  Buchanan  will  be  nomi 
nated,  in  which  event  there  may  be  a  third  candidate. 

Mr.  Lyons  of  St.  Lawrence  Co.  is  here,  much  devoted  to 
Houston,  &  sanguine  that  he  will  be  nominated.  I  am  won 
very  much  by  Houston's  conversation.  With  him  the  Anti- 
Slavery  interest  would  stand  better  than  with  any  man  who 
seems  now  among  possibilities ;  he  is  really  against  Slavery ; 
&  has  no  prejudices  against  Free  Soilers.  In  other  respects 
he  is  candid,  liberal  &  honorable.  I  have  been  astonished  to 
find  myself  so  much  of  his  inclining. 

Col.  Benton  says  that  those  Kentucky  resolutions  were  pre 
pared  in  Washington  &  sent  out  in  order  "to  slaughter" 
Butler.  He  says  no  Freesoil-man  can  go  into  the  Baltimore 
Conv.  without  a  halter  about  his  neck,  &  asks  how  Preston 
King  can  go  there. 


BRYANT'S  MONUMENT  TO  COOPER  125 

You  will  see  that  the  Hunker  Advertiser  of  Boston,  on  the 
strength  of  an  imperfect  telegraphic  report,  made  haste  to 
attack  my  speech  on  Public  Lands,  mis-apprehending  &  mis 
stating  my  position.  In  this  it  shewed  the  animus.  Judge 
Felch  of  Michigan,  in  an  elaborate  speech  to-day,  has  adopted 
&  sustained  my  view.  I  challenge  criticism  for  it,— although 
it  is  new. 

I  love  the  memory  of  Story— I  recognise  his  foibles— but  I 
admire  his  judicial  character  as  transcendant.  The  son  wrote 
with  the  constant  sentiment  of  a  son.  Don't  be  too  hard. 

Ever  Yrs 


SUMNEE  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  March  2nd,  1852. 
Dear  Bigelow, 

Congress  &  all  the  world  have  a  vacation  to-day  to  quaff 
fresh  air,  sunshine  &  Champagne  on  board  the  Baltic.  I  voted 
for  the  adjournment;  but  did  not  care  to  put  myself  in  the 
great  man-trap,  set  especially  for  members  of  Congress.  How 
I  shall  finally  vote,  I  know  not ;  but  I  incline  with  you. 

I  wish  some  practical  way  of  securing  cheap  ocean  postage. 
That  I  regard  as  of  unquestionable  value,  in  all  respects. 

I  am  disturbed  by  your  dissent  from  my  land  views ;  for  I 
counted  upon  yr  concurrence.  I  think  you  do  not  precisely 
appreciate  the  limitations  of  my  argt.  Looking  upon  the 
United  States  as  the  great  untaxed  proprietor,  I  say  it  ought 
to  contribute  bountifully  to  roads,  &  other  means  by  which  the 
lands  may  be  benefited.  What  I  said  hath  this  extent;  no 
more.  My  view  was  briefly  summed  up  in  an  off-hand  re 
joinder  to  Mr.  Hunter,  which  I  enclose  for  yr  eye. 

I  see  nothing  certain  in  the  Presidential  horizon.  In  all  my 
meditations  I  revert  with  new  regret  to  the  attempted  recon 
ciliation  of  '49,  in  yr  state.  Without  that,  we  should  now  con- 
troul  the  Free  States. 

I  read  carefully  &  enjoyed  much  Mr.  Bryant's  Address.1  I 
was  tempted  to  write  him  the  praise  which  was  on  my  lips.  It 

1  Before  the  New  York  Historical  Society,  on  Cooper,  Webster  presiding. 


126       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

was  a  truthful,  simple  &  delicate  composition;  and  much  as  I 
value  sculpture  &  Greenough,  I  cannot  but  add  that  it  will  be 
a  more  durable  monument  to  Cooper  than  any  other.  Web 
ster's  historical  article  was  crude  &  trite  enough. 

Ever  Yours 


SUMNEE  TO  BIGELOW 

Confidential 

SENATE  CHAMBEK, 

Monday  [August,  1852]. 
M y  dear  Bigelow, 

The  world  blesses  the  telegraph  for  the  promptitude  with 
which  it  carries  news;  but  speakers  must  curse  it  for  its  in 
accuracies.  In  sending  the  reports  of  what  I  say,  I  am  often 
tempted  to  exclaim— "  give  me  oblivion  rather  than  such  a 
notoriety."  My  late  speech  looked  strangely  in  New  York. 

The  kind  interest  you  express  in  my  speech  tempts  me  to  the 
confidence  of  friendship.  I  shall  be  attacked,  &  the  speech 
will  be  disparaged.  But  you  shall  know  something  of  what 
was  said  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate.  You  will  see  what  Hill 
&  Chase  said  openly  in  debate.  Others  are  reported  in  Con 
vention.  I  know  that  some  Hunkers  have  felt  its  force.  Clarke 
of  E.  I.  said  1 '  it  would  be  a  text-book  when  they  were  dead  & 
gone. ' '  Shields  said  it  was  the  ablest  speech  ever  made  in  the 
Senate  on  Slavery;  and  Bright  used  even  stronger  language. 
Cass  has  complimented  me  warmly.  Soule  has  expressed  him 
self  in  the  strongest  terms.  Welles,  after  using  strong  terms 
of  praise,  said  "it  would  do  more  mischief  than  any  speech 
ever  made  in  the  Country. "  Polk,  who  was  sober  &  who  lis 
tened  for  two  hours,  said  "the  argt.  was  unanswerable, " 
though  he  could  not  say  this  aloud.  I  write  these  for  your 
private  &  friendly  eye. 

I  throw  this  speech  down  as  a  gage.  I  believe  it  presents 
the  true  limits  of  opposition  to  slavery,  within  the  Constitu 
tion.  I  challenge  an  answer.  The  attempts  in  the  Senate 
were  puerile  and  ill-tempered. 


THE  BURIAL  OF  WEBSTER  127 

I  send  you  the  outside  of  the  Era,  which  contains  7  columns. 
The  whole  will  be  18  columns.  The  next  batch  you  shall  have 
to-morrow.  It  would  please  me  much  to  see  it  in  the  Post;  but 
I  did  not  expect  it. 

I  can  not  leave  here  before  the  end  of  the  week.  Many  mat 
ters,  among  others  the  publication  of  my  speech  in  a  pamphlet, 
will  detain  me  after  the  close  of  the  session.  I  see  that  I  am 
announced  for  Faneuil  Hall  next  Tuesday.  This  I  regret.  I 
am  weary  &  long  for  vacation.  I  have  been  in  my  seat  every 
day  this  session. 

I  shall  hope  to  see  you  on  my  way  through  New  York,  to 
converse  on  many  things.  I  regret  very  much  that  John  Van 
Buren  has  gone  into  this  campaign.  If  he  could  not  oppose 
Baltimore  he  should  have  been  silent.  Even  Welles,  with 
whom  he  has  been  speaking  in  New  Hampshire,  says  he  ought 
to  have  gone  to  Europe.  My  admiration  &  attachment  for 
him  have  been  sincere,  &,  in  the  most  friendly  spirit,  I  regret 
his  course. 

Pardon  this  freedom. 

We  are  now  in  the  hurly-burly  of  a  last  day.  The  pressure 
is  immense. 

Ever  Yours 


SUMNEE  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  Sunday  [December,  1852]. 
Dear  Bigelow, 

I  had  done  nothing  about  the  Hayti  Correspondence,  as  our 
Committees  have  not  yet  been  appointed,  &  Soule  has  not  yet 
arrived. 

Tomorrow  I  will  send  you  a  copy,— if  possible. 

The  pressure  from  the  Southern  Chivalry  will  cause  a  day 
to  be  set  apart  in  Congress  for  the  burial  of  Mr.  Webster. 
Would  that  it  were  indeed  "to  bury  Caesar,  not  to  praise 
him!"  Of  course,  I  cannot  appear  among  the  eulogists  of 
Daniel  Webster. 

11  Unhappy  that  I  am,  I  cannot  heave 
My  heart  into  my  mouth. " — 


128        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

You  remember  the  words  of  Cordelia.    I  shall  be  silent;  but 
that  silence  shall  be  a  speech.    Dum  tacet  clamores. 

Yr  sketch  of  Thackeray  interested  me  much. 
Why  does  not  yr  paper  come  more  regularly! 

Ever  Yrs 

Eush  tells  me  that  %0ths  of  the  democrats  are  against  the 
movement  for  Cuba,  &  he  is  glad  to  believe  that  Pierce  is 
"Conservative."  Dickinson  is  busy  trying  to  check-mate 
Marcy. 


Dear  Sir: 


PEESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  Deer.  23d,  1852. 


In  a  casual  conversation  with  Col.  Benton  the  other  evening 
I  got  the  impression  that  his  Book  would  be  prepared  and 
examined  by  himself  with  great  care  before  it  would  be  pub 
lished  and  that  it  was  not  fully  ready  for  the  Press.  I  do  not 
see  any  objection  to  your  writing  direct  to  the  Col.  on  the  sub 
ject—or  if  you  choose  I  will  speak  to  him  or  Mr.  Blair,  I  have 
no  doubt,  would  confer  with  him.  I  shall  not  make  any  sug 
gestion  to  any  one  on  the  subject  without  hearing  from  you 
again. 

Yours  truly 


SUMNEE  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  Sunday  [1852-3]. 
Dear  Bigelow, 

The  diplomatic  complaints  open  rich.  They  are  pleasant 
reading.  Before  you  finish  with  them,  I  hope  you  will  have  at 
least  one  stiff  article  on  the  character  of  our  representatives 
abroad.  For  God's  sake  let  us  have  republicans,  who  will  not 


G.  W.  CURTIS'S  FIRST  LECTURE  129 

crouch  to  rank  or  fashion,  but  will  bear  themselves  as  becomes 
the  foremost  Eepublic !     Let  Pierce  have  a  warning. 

There  is  a  lull  here,  nothing  doing,  except  cabinet-making. 
I  write  for  yr  private  eye  some  of  the  sayings.  B.  F.  Hallett 
writes  that  Pierce  must  not  take  a  Free  Soiler  or  Secessionist. 
The  compromises  are  the  most  rabid  &  prescriptive.  On  the 
other  hand  John  Tyler,  from  his  retreat  in  Virginia,  says 
there  must  be  in  the  Cabinet  a  Free  Soiler  &  a  secessionist. 
Dickinson  overflows  against  Marcy,  who  he  prophesies  will 
end  as  a  Free  Soiler.  He  thinks  he  could  have  carried  New 
York  by  a  larger  vote  than  Pierce.  Soule  tells  me  that  his 
friends  asked  him  how  he  should  regard  John  V.  B.  's  appoint 
ment.  His  reply  was— "  We  accepted  his  services  in  the  hour 
of  battle,  it  will  be  dishonorable  to  discard  him  in  the  hour  of 
victory. "  Soule  is  a  generous  chivalrous  character.  Having 
been  in  a  minority  at  home  he  knows  how  to  sympathize  with 
the  minority  at  the  North.  His  friends  wish  Jeff.  Davis  as 
Secy  of  War.  He  speaks  warmly  of  Dix,  &  thinks  he  would  be 
a  good  appointment.  Gwin  despairing  of  re-election  wishes  to 
retreat  to  the  Treasury. 

Ever  Yrs 


It  was  in  the  winter  of  1852  that  I  received  the  following 
note  from  George  William  Curtis : 

Monday,  27th  Dec.  1852. 
My  dear  Sir: 

My  friend  Mr.  Sherwood  represents  the  Committee  for  the 
Popular  Series  of  Lectures  at  the  Tabernacle,  and  wishes  to 
speak  with  you  to  coax  you  to  present  me  to  the  public  which 
so  justly  and  warmly  appreciates  your  genius!!  (not  to 
flatter)  " 

Yours  most  truly 

ME.  BIGELOW.  GEO-  WM"  CuETIS 


I,  of  course,  promptly  testified  my  pleasure  in  complying 
with  the  wishes  of  Mr.  Curtis. 


130       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

It  was  on  this  occasion  that  Curtis  formally  adopted  lectur 
ing  as  a  vocation.  As  the  author  of  "Prue  and  I"  and  "Nile 
Notes,"  he  was  known  to  and  admired  by  a  select  few  in  New 
York  and  New  England,  but  he  had  still  a  name  to  make  for 
success  in  the  lecture  field.  It  was  the  consciousness  of  this 
that  led  him  to  begin  in  New  York,  where  sooner  than  else 
where  he  might  commend  himself  for  a  starring  engagement 
in  the  provinces. 

His  audience  was  not  large.  It  consisted  pretty  exclusively 
of  kinspeople  and  personal  friends.  The  lecture,  however,  was 
admirably  adapted  for  a  miscellaneous  audience;  was  duly 
noticed  by  the  press  on  the  following  day ;  and,  by  the  number 
of  times  it  was  repeated  by  him,  must  have  netted  him,  first 
and  last,  much  money,  though  on  this,  his  first  night,  he  prob 
ably  did  not  clear  expenses  in  door  receipts.  In  the  advertis 
ing  it  procured  him,  it  was  probably  the  most  profitable 
evening  he  ever  spent  on  the  lecture  platform. 

I  then  felt  flattered,  and  still  remember  with  satisfaction 
that  from  his  wide  circle  of  friends  and  admirers  he  should 
have  selected  one  of  the  proprietary  editors  of  the  press  with 
whom  he  was  then  probably  least  intimate,  to  preside  at  his 
first  appearance  before  the  public  as  a  speaker. 

My  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Curtis  commenced  at  the  Press 
Club,  and  up  to  that  time  had  been  limited  to  our  meetings  at 
its  monthly  dinners. 


SUMNEB  TO  BIGELOW 

SENATE  CHAMBER, 

Jan.  10th,  '53. 
Dear  Bigelow, 

Here  is  a  note  which  explains  itself.  The  writer,  as  you  see, 
desires  to  enter  upon  newspaper  life.  He  is  still  young— say 
22— of  Harvard  College— with  a  taste  for  books  &  scholar 
ship.  I  will  give  him  an  introduction  to  you,  as  he  desires. 

Soule's  theory  is  to  keep  ourselves  master  of  our  position  & 
watchful  of  exigencies,  without  filibustering  &  with  a  just  re 
gard  for  Spain  &  the  Castilian  character,  believing  that  the  time 
will  come  when  Spain  may  be  disposed  to  part  with  the  Island. 


BENTON'S  "THIRTY  YEARS"  IN  THE  SENATE    131 

It  is  clear  that  many  desire  to  dispense  with  Cass's  services 
as  leader.  This  will  animate  the  discussion  which  commences 
tomorrow. 

Jan.  llth.  I  send  you  to-day  the  first  copy  I  have  seen  of 
Part  II  of  Doct.  accompanying  Presdt's  Message. 

I  lately  met  Col.  Benton  at  dinner  chez  Bodisco,  &  intro 
duced  the  subject  of  your  desires.  I  pressed  him  to  allow  the 
speedy  publication  of  large  parcels  of  his  work  in  the  Evening 
Post.  He  told  me  that  Cicero  was  not  mentioned  by  Virgil  or 
Horace— that  during  the  Augustan  period  he  seemed  to  be  for 
gotten—but  that  his  Oratioms  &  Letters  were  now  the  exclusive 
authority  for  the  history  of  his  times  !— 

Soule  is  to-day  in  his  seat,  but  quite  unwell. 

Ever  Yours 


SENATE  CHAMBER, 

Jan.  llth,  '53. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

I  am  glad  to  introduce  to  you  my  friend  Mr.  Wm.  S.  Thayer, 
of  whom  I  have  already  written— a  young  man  of  talent  & 
culture,  of  true  principles— a  poet,  a  scholar  &  a  writer.  Pie 
seeks  a  newspaper  life.  I  know  you  will  give  him  yr  counsel. 

Ever  Yrs, 
CHAELES 


SUMNER  TO  BIGELOW 

'SENATE  CHAMBER, 

Jan.  17th,  '53. 
Dear  Bigelow, 

It  seems  to  me  a  certain  Will  now  current  in  newspapers 
deserves  an  article. 

1With  this  note  commenced  the  connection  of  Mr.  Thayer  with  the  Even 
ing  Post  until  his  health  compelled  him  to  take  refuge  in  a  milder  climate 
and  to  end  his  days  as  Consul-General  of  the  United  States  in  Egypt.  Mr. 
Sumner  did  not  in  the  least  exaggerate  the  merits  of  his  friend  nor  could  then 
have  imagined  his  value  to  the  Evening  Post. 


132        RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Mark  the  extent  to  which  it  draws  on  friends — the  Walter 
Scott  mania  to  support  his  "house" — &  the  ostentatious  dec 
laration  that  certain  domestics  are  "free"— in  Mass,  where 
Slavery  was  abolished  by  the  Constitution  in  1780. 

I  send  also  an  interesting  circular  which  may  be  called  a 
codicil  to  the  Will. 

Ever  Yrs 

Hunter  told  me  this  morning  that  there  was  no  truth  in  yr 
story  that  he  stood  off  from  y  Cabinet  on  account  of  Dix. 

The  following  is  the  "interesting  circular"  sent  by  Sumner : 

WASHINGTON  CITY,  January  1,  1853. 
Sir: 

Mr.  WEBSTER,  years  ago,  emancipated  a  negro  man  named ' '  WILLIAM,  ' ' 
with  whose  good  service  as  ''body  servant/ '  up  to  the  death-bed  at 
Marshfield,  you  may  be  acquainted,  and  whom  he  so  kindly  mentioned 
in  his  will.  He  ever  enjoyed  the  esteem  of  his  kind  master,  and  it 
was  Mr.  WEBSTER  's  expressed  intention  to  have  also  emancipated  his 
wife,  "DAPHNE,"  a  slave  in  this  District.  This,  with  many  other 
intended  testimonials  of  individual  regard,  was  postponed  by  a  pres 
sure  of  official  business,  and  finally  arrested  by  the  relentless  hand 
of  Death. 

Circumstances  of  recent  occurrence,  render  it  necessary  that 
"DAPHNE"  be  sold  by  her  present  owner,  and  "WILLIAM"  is  grieved 
to  learn  that  she  may  be  sent  to  the  South,1  whilst  he  can  only  obtain 
a  livelihood  here,  or  in  some  other  city  where  servants  of  his  class 
are  needed.  A  knowledge  of  all  these  facts  have  [sic]  induced  the 
subscribers  (sustained  by  other  admirers  of  the  Great  Statesman)  to 
solicit  subscriptions  from  gentlemen  who  may  be  disposed  to  aid  in  a 
good  deed,  to  pay  a  tribute  of  regard  to  a  faithful  domestic,  and  to 
carry  out  the  wishes  of  his  benefactor. 

Any  sum  you  may  be  pleased  to  contribute,  may  be  enclosed  to 
RICHARD  SMITH,  Esq.,  Cashier  of  the  Bank  of  the  Metropolis,  who  has 
consented  to  act  as  treasurer.  Acknowledgments  will  be  made  in  the 
public  prints;  and,  should  there  be  any  surplus,  it  will  be  given  to 

WILLIAM.  TT  ,  „  ,, 

Very  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servants, 

CHARLES  LANMAN, 
GEORGE  J.  ABBOT, 
BEN.  PERLEY  POORE. 
1With  an  infant  five  months  old. 


GEORGE  SUMNER  DECLINES  OFFICE  133 

SUMNER  TO  BIGELOW 

Private 

SENATE  CHAMBEE, 

March  26th,  '53. 
Dear  Bigelow, 

The  post  of  Assistant  Secy  of  State  was  offered  to  my 
brother ;  but  I  write,  not  for  any  public  correction  of  yr  paper, 
but  merely  for  yr  private  information. 

More  than  10  days  ago  Mr.  Marcy  communicated  to  me  per 
sonally  his  desire  to  have  my  brother  in  the  place— his  sense 
of  his  fitness  beyond  that  of  any  other  person  in  the  country— 
&  also  the  extent  to  which  he  was  plagued  by  applications 
from  persons  who  would  make  the  office  only  a  clerkship.  My 
brother  was  absent  from  Washington  at  the  time.  At  the 
request  of  Mr.  Marcy  I  sent  for  him,  &  on  his  arrival,  at  Mr. 
Marcy 's  request,  he  reported  himself  at  the  State  Department 
—was  most  cordially  welcomed— was  assured  that  not  only 
the  Secy,  but  the  President,  desired  him  to  be  Assistant  Secry 
—that  his  knowledge  of  European  affairs  was  needed— that  it 
was  the  intention  to  raise  the  salary  of  the  office  &  to  make  it  a 
desirable  position.  At  three  different  stages  of  a  protracted 
interview  the  matter  was  thus  pressed  upon  my  brother.  But 
in  the  course  of  the  interview  Mr.  Marcy  expressed  a  desire 
for  some  confession  on  the  subject  of  Slavery,  by  which  my 
brother  should  be  distinguished  from  me— some  acceptance  of 
the  Baltimore  Platform,  all  of  which  he  peremptorily  declined 
to  do  in  a  manner  that  made  Mr.  Marcy  say  to  me  afterwards 
that  he  had  " behaved  in  an  honourable  manner."  After  my 
brother  had  fully  declared  his  determination,  &  his  abnegation 
of  all  desire  for  offices,  of  which  I  do  not  speak  in  detail,  the 
Secretary  still  expressed  a  desire  for  his  services.  Subse 
quently  my  brother  addressed  him  a  brief  note  absolutely 
declining,  &  in  another  note  recommended  the  appointment  of 
Dudley  Mann. 

This  affair  has  got  into  the  newspapers,  but  by  no  sugges 
tion  of  mine  or  of  my  brother. 

Slidell  's  nomination  is  a  great  blow  to  Soule. 

Ever  Yrs 


134       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 


SUMNEB  TO  BIGELOW 

SENATE  CHAMBER, 

April  7th,  >53. 
Dear  Bigelow, 

Did  I  tell  you  what  Marcy  said  of  the  Barnburner  section  as 
an  aid  to  the  Administration?  I  forget;  but  your  article  of 
yesterday  reminds  me  of  it. 

He  declared  that  this  Administration  could  not  get  through 
without  leaning  upon  the  Barnburners— that  they  were  the 
truest  democrats  (he  did  not  say  because  they  support  per 
sonal  rights)— on  finance,  state  rights  &c  &  that  the  national 
party  would  need  their  assistance.  He  claimed  great  credit 
to  himself  for  the  Union,  saying  that  he  had  made  the  bridge 
between  the  two  Sections.  To  which  I  replied,  that  he  should 
be  hailed  with  Roman  praise,  as  Pontifex  Maximus. 

We  expect  to-day  the  nomination  of  Soule  for  Spain  & 
Buchanan  for  England.  The  tone  of  the  Administration  on 
Foreign  affairs  will  be  indicated  by  Soule  's  nomination.  This 
I  know. 

Some  curiosities  of  the  Cabinet  I  learn.  My  brother's  first 
nomination  in  cabinet  council  came  from  Jefferson  Davis,  who 
spurned  at  once  the  suggestion  from  Marcy  that  he  would  be 
obnoxious  to  the  South!  Give  me  a  thorough  Southerner 
rather  than  a  Northern  doughface ! 

Ever  Yrs 


SUMNEE  TO  BIGELOW 

SENATE  CHAMBER, 

13th  June,  '54. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

What  have  you  to  say  on  the  statement  that  Dominica  is  a 
white  republic,  in  contradistinction  to  Hayti? 

Is  Santana  of  Caucasian  or  African  extraction  or  of  mixed 
origin? 


THE   UNION  DISPLACES  THE   GLOBE  135 

How  many  persons  of  unmixed  white  blood  are  there  in 
Dominica  ? 

If  you  can  answer  these  questions  easily  I  should  be  glad  to 
have  your  answers.  Perhaps,  it  would  be  well  to  do  it  in  yr. 
paper. 

Many  here  who  look  forward  to  a  Grand  Junction  party  at 
the  North  have  been  disturbed  by  yr.  article  of  last  week;  &  I 
am  one  of  them.  I  see  no  salvation  of  the  country,  except  in 
such  a  combination,  that  all  past  differences  on  Tariff,  Internal 
improvements  &  other  things,  shall  be  dissolved  as  in  a  potent 
alembic. 

Ever  Yours 


With  the  accession  of  Polk  to  the  Presidency,  Blair  and 
Rives  discontinued  the  publication  of  the  Globe,  which  had 
been  the  organ  of  the  Administration  since  Jackson's  time, 
and  a  paper  called  the  Union,  under  the  editorship  of  Mr. 
Ritchie  of  the  Richmond  Enquirer,  took  its  place.  The  follow 
ing  letter  was  one  of  the  ignoble  fruits  of  the  change. 


Union  Office. 

WASHINGTON  CITY, 

July  12th,  1853. 
WM.  C.  BRYANT  &  Co., 
Gentlemen: 

Yours  of  the  9th  inst.  is  rec'd.  You  were  right  in  supposing  that 
the  New  York  Evening  Post  had  been  erased  from  our  exchange  list. 
I  deemed  such  course  to  be  but  a  proper  indication  of  the  feelings  with 
which  I  regarded  the  persistence  of  the  Post  in  a  line  of  policy  cal 
culated  to  injure  the  democratic  party  and  to  keep  alive  the  spirit  of 
sectional  agitation.  I  supposed  too  that  such  course  would  be  expected 
and  probably  desired  by  you.  I  cannot  consent  to  place  the  Post  on 
my  books  as  a  subscriber,  but  as  you  express  a  wish  to  receive  the  Union 
I  shall  have  the  Post  restored  to  our  exchange  list,  not  intending  there 
by  however  to  modify  in  any  respect  the  sentiments  recently  avowed  in 
the  Union  as  to  the  character  of  the  Post. 

With  proper  regard, 

R.  ARMSTRONG. 


136       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 


SUMNER  TO  BIGELOW 

SENATE  CHAMBER, 

16th  June,  '54. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

General  Houston  has  occasion  to  be  in  New  York,  in  the 
course  of  a  few  days,  &,  I  doubt  not,  will  address  his  fellow- 
citizens,  if  occasion  is  given.  He  speaks  openly  of  the  Ad 
ministration  &  denounces  the  Nebraska  perfidy,  as,  among 
other  things,  an  overthrow  of  the  Texas  resolution,  securing  4 
new  States.  Do  give  him  a  good  opportunity.  Douglas  &  his 
brass  band  can  be  outdone. 

The  admission  from  a  Texas  senator  that  the  Compromise 
by  which  his  state  is  to  be  benefited  is  practically  annulled, 
will  pave  the  way  for  the  complete  annulling  by  the  North  of 
all  the  other  compromises. 

Ever  Yours 


My  life-work  outside  of  the  domestic  circle  for  the  next  eight 
years  was  pretty  fully  recorded  in  the  columns  of  the  Evening 
Post.  They  were  very  instructive  years  for  me.  They  helped 
me  morally  and  intellectually.  I  had  the  singular  advantage 
of  being  associated  in  the  most  confidential  relations  with  the 
most  eminent  man  of  letters  which  our  country  had  then  pro 
duced—I  don't  think  I  would  take  great  risk  in  saying,  has 
yet  produced.  I  had  never  met  then,  nor  have  I  met  since,  a 
man  of  higher  moral  standards  nor  many  men  of  such  varied 
literary  accomplishments,  though  his  modesty  was  such  that 
few  even  of  his  intimate  friends  had  any  just  idea  of  the  extent 
of  them.  I  was  more  successful  than  I  had  any  right  to  ex 
pect,  and  we  prospered. 

The  questions  we  had  to  discuss  in  those  days,  happily  for 
me,  were  mainly  moral  questions.  We  were  for  freedom 
against  slavery,  which  was  the  piece  de  resistance  from  year 
in  to  year  out.  We  were  the  leading  if  not  the  only  champion 
of  a  revenue  tariff  as  against  a  protective  tariff,  in  all  the 


JARED   SPARKS  AND  EDITORIAL  LIBERTIES     137 

Northern  States.  We  hunted  with  almost  reckless  audacity 
every  base  or  selfish  influence  that  was  brought  to  bear  either 
upon  legislation  or  administration.  Hence,  although  we  al 
ways  professed  to  be  Democrats  and  to  preach  what  we  re 
garded  as  the  genuine  principles  of  popular  sovereignty,  we 
were  never  regarded  as  a  part  of  the  machine,  and  rarely  were 
even  as  tolerant  of  it  as  perhaps  at  times  we  might  as  well 
have  been. 

The  following  note  from  the  late  Jared  Sparks  was  pro 
voked  by  a  review  I  made  of  that  gentleman's  edition  of  the 
correspondence  of  Washington  with  Bead,  in  which  I  took 
exception  to  Mr.  Sparks 's  editorial  liberties  with  the  text  of 
Washington's  letters — liberties  such  as,  many  years  later,  I 
learned  had  been  taken  with  the  Autobiography  of  Dr.  Frank 
lin  by  his  literary  executor.1  Our  correspondence  may  be 
found  in  the  Evening  Post  of  January  or  February,  1852,  and 
I  think  had  some  influence  in  protecting  the  text  of  our  co 
lonial  publicists  from  the  profane  liberties  of  purists. 

I  was  sorry  to  learn  later  how  much  pain  my  criticism  had 
given  this  learned  and  venerable  professor,  but  even  now, 
after  an  interval  of  more  than  half  a  century,  I  find  it  difficult 
to  pardon  such  editorial  liberties,  especially  when  the  example 
was  set  by  one  of  the  then  most  accredited  literary  authorities 
in  our  country. 


JAEED  SPAEKS  TO  WILLIAM  C.  BEYANT 

Private 

CAMBRIDGE,  March  29th,  1852. 
Dear  Sir: 

I  forward  herewith  a  communication,  in  the  form  of  letters,  which 
I  should  be  glad  to  have  published  in  the  Evening  Post.  They  relate 
to  strictures  which  have  appeared  in  that  Journal,  respecting  my 
editorial  agency  in  the  preparation  of  Washington's  Writings  for  the 
press. 

If  there  should  be  any  objection  to  publishing  these  letters  in  the 

1  See  Bigelow's  Life  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  Preface  (The  Lippincott  Co.r 
Philadelphia). 


138       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Evening  Post,  which  I  cannot  suppose,  I  must  ask  of  you  the  favor  to 
return  them  to  me  without  delay  through  the  mail. 

I  am,  dear  Sir, 

With  much  respect  &  regard, 

Your  ob't  Serv't 


P.  S.  These  papers  were  nearly  prepared  two  months  ago,  imme 
diately  after  the  notice  of  Lord  Mahon's  book  appeared  in  your  Jour 
nal;  but  I  was  then  seized  with  a  severe  illness,  which  has  confined 
me  to  the  house  ever  since,  &  from  which  I  am  but  just  now  recover 
ing.  Moreover,  I  had  a  long  illness  at  the  time  the  strictures  were 
first  published,  which  disabled  me  from  writing. 

I  hope  the  two  extracts  marked  in  the  margin  will  be  printed  in 
the  same  type  as  the  body  of  the  articles ;  and  that  the  several  letters 
will  appear  in  as  nearly  consecutive  papers  as  your  other  arrangements 
will  permit. 


A  humorous  article  which  appeared  in  a  Western  paper  and 
which  I  copied  into  the  Evening  Post  led  to  the  following  cor 
respondence  and  to  a  considerable  transient  fame  of  a  gentle 
man  who  was  and  still  is  mostly  known  by  the  pseudonym  of 
"Doesticks."  Mr.  Thomson  finally  found  a  place  on  the  staff 
of  the  Tribune  for  a  time.  His  habits,  however,  were  or  be 
came  unfortunate,  and  his  career  was  meteoric.  I  then  thought 
and  still  think  that  Mr.  Thomson  had  intellectual  gifts  which 
properly  husbanded  and  cultivated  would  have  entitled  him  to 
a  by  no  means  inconspicuous  place  among  American  men  of 
letters. 


"DOESTICKS"  TO  BIGELOW 

NEW  YOKK,  Dec.  4,  1854. 
My  dear  Friend: 

I  was  detained  at  home  yesterday,  as  you  have  undoubtedly 
surmised,  by  stress  of  weather.  The  business  upon  which  I 
wished  to  converse  is  like  this : — 


DOESTICKS  139 

Mr.  Livermore  seems  to  be  very  strongly  of  the  opinion  that 
I  may  be  able  to  write  something  for  him  which  will  sell,  and 
as  I  have  no  objection  to  doing  that,  especially  if  it  will  put  a 
few  dollars  in  my  individual  pouch,  I  have  about  determined  to 
try.  My  idea  is  to  take  some  of  the  letters  which  have  already 
appeared,  write  others  to  fill  in,  connect  them  by  some  slight 
thread  (as  for  instance  the  adventures  of  Doesticks  and  his 
friends),  and  then,  claiming  nothing  on  the  score  of  literary 
merit,  publish  them  for  what  they  are.  If  the  work  should 
meet  with  a  sale,  all  very  well ;  if  not,  there  will  be  nothing  lost 
or  risked  on  the  score  of  reputation.  What  I  would  ask  of  you 
is,  your  opinion  as  to  the  judiciousness  of  such  a  course,  as  to 
the  probability  of  the  sale  of  the  book  sufficient  to  protect  the 
publisher  at  least  from  loss ;  and  what  you  think  about  Mr.  L. 
being  the  proper  man  to  make  terms  with.  I  should  do  all  in 
my  power  to  fulfill  my  part  of  the  bargain,  and  try  my  utmost 
to  make  the  work  readable.  By  devoting  all  my  spare  time  to 
the  enterprise,  I  think  I  might  be  able  to  have  the  necessary 
quantity  at  least,  prepared  in  three  or  four  months.  I  should 
not  desire  to  make  any  engagement  which  will  prevent  my 
writing  say  one  letter  a  week  for  some  paper. 

If  you  can  suggest  to  me  any  plan  which  you  think  would  be 
an  improvement,  or  any  title  which  you  think  would  "take," 
your  hints  will  be  most  gratefully  received.  Mr.  L.  says  that 
if  I  conclude  a  bargain  with  him  he  will  give  whatever  terms 
you  shall  say  to  be  fair  and  honourable  for  both  parties. 

Will  you  then,  in  addition  to  all  the  other  favors  you  have 
shown  me,  permit  me  to  refer  him  to  you  when  he  begins  to 
talk  of  money,  and  whatever  you  may  agree  with  him  I  will 
consider  binding  upon  myself. 

I  have  agreed  to  meet  Mr.  L.  at  noon,  and  if  you  can  send  me 
an  immediate  answer,  however  brief,  I  shall  feel  much  obliged- 
I  did  not  like  to  trespass  personally  upon  your  time  at  this 
hour,  and  thought  perhaps  you  might  be  able  to  judge  what  I 
desire  to  do,  and  give  me  your  opinion  on  the  subject  as  well 
from  a  written  as  a  verbal  statement,  and  do  it  with  less 
trouble  to  yourself. 

Yours  truly, 

M.  W.  THOMSON. 


THE  FIEST  TEIUMPH  OF  THE  PARTISANS  OF  FEEE  SOIL,  FEEE 
LABOE,  AND  FEEE  MEN 

IN  1853  Senator  Douglas  introduced  his  third  anti-Nebraska 
Bill,  organizing  two  Territories  instead  of  one  and  de 
claring  that  the  Missouri  Compromise,  being  "  inconsistent 
with  the  principle  of  non-intervention  by  Congress  with  sla 
very  in  the  States  and  Territories,  as  recognized  by  the  legisla 
tion  of  1850  (commonly  called  the  compromise  measures),  is 
hereby  declared  inoperative  and  void ;  it  being  the  true  intent 
and  meaning  of  this  act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any 
Territory  or  State,  nor  to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to  leave 
the  people  thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their 
domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  only  to  the 
Constitution"— a  change  which  Senator  Benton  characterized 
as  "a  stump  speech  injected  into  the  belly  of  the  Nebraska 
Bill."  Mr.  Hamlin,  afterwards  Vice-President,  is  quoted  by 
Hay  and  Nicolay  as  their  authority  for  saying  that  this  bill  as 
quoted  was  written  by  President  Franklin  Pierce  himself. 
Douglas,  doubting  the  firmness  of  the  President,  told  Hamlin 
he  intended  to  get  from  the  President  something  in  black  and 
white  that  would  hold  him.  He  afterwards  showed  Mr.  Ham 
lin  the  draft  of  the  amendment  in  Pierce 's  own  writing. 

In  1853  the  House  of  Eepresentatives  contained  71  Whigs, 
4  Free-Soilers,  159  Democrats— a  clear  Democratic  majority 
of  84.  The  year  after  the  adoption  of  the  Douglas  Nebraska 
Bill  and  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  the  classifi 
cation  was  about  108  anti-Nebraska  members,  about  40  Know- 
Nothings,  and  only  75  Democrats.  The  remaining  members 
were  undecided.  The  Democratic  majority  which  elected 
Pierce  for  President  was  thus  annihilated  by  the  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise  and  has  never  been  recovered. 

140 


BANKS  ELECTED  SPEAKER  OF  THE  HOUSE      141 

One  of  the  consequences  of  this  political  revolution  was  the 
nomination  of  Mr.  Eichardson,  the  Democratic  leader  in  the 
House  on  the  Nebraska  Bill,  for  Speaker,  and  Nathaniel  P. 
Banks  of  Massachusetts  by  the  Eepublicans.  Eichardson,  get 
ting  only  76  votes,  withdrew.  The  result  was  the  election  of 
Banks  by  103  votes,  against  100  votes  for  William  Aiken  of 
South  Carolina,  after  120  ballotings  continuing  nearly  two 
months,  from  December  3  to  January  23. 

In  this  struggle  between  freedom  and  slavery,  in  the  last 
century,  this  was  the  first  victory  of  importance  achieved  by 
the  Free-Soilers.  Banks  was  a  young  man  of  obscure  origin 
who  began  life  in  a  cotton-mill,  but  who  had  the  bearing  and 
the  conduct  of  a  man  that  had  been  born  to  the  purple.  The 
contest  over  him  was  very  bitter.  There  was  no  weapon  of 
offence  or  defence  of  which  the  slaveholders  did  not  avail 
themselves  to  defeat  him.  The  business  of  our  national  Legis 
lature  was  delayed  two  or  three  weeks  by  the  difficulty  of 
securing  the  requisite  majority  for  any  candidate.  This  vic 
tory  had  the  more  importance  to  the  North  because  the  polit 
ical  views  of  the  Speaker  could  not  fail  to  have  very  great 
influence  upon  the  then  approaching  Presidential  election. 

Not  long  after  Congress  was  organized,  Mr.  Banks  came 
over  to  New  York  and  called  upon  me  to  talk  about  the  political 
situation  and  the  best  mode  of  turning  our  recent  victory  to 
account.  The  Free-Soilers  were  then  an  unorganized  body. 
The  Federal  Government  and  almost  the  entire  press  of  the 
country  were  against  them,  and  the  few  journals  that  sup 
ported  them  were  chiefly  content  with  commending  their  prin 
ciples  and  denouncing  slavery  or  efforts  then  making  to 
introduce  slavery  into  the  free  Territories. 

We  had  no  candidate  to  incarnate  our  principles,  and  men 
of  national  reputation  were  either  committed  to  the  other  side 
or  had  been  too  active  partisans  for  the  Free-Soilers  of  oppos 
ing  parties  to  unite  upon.  Mr.  Banks  referred  at  some  length 
to  this  feature  of  our  situation,  and  he  then  said  that  we  could 
never  make  any  headway  as  a  party  until  we  produced  some 
one  who  would  incarnate  our  principles ;  that  the  people  could 
never  be  made  to  join  a  party  or  to  be  active  in  favor  of  a 
platform  without  a  man  on  it;  that  he  thought  the  time  had 
come  when  it  was  necessary  to  secure  such  a  man  if  he  could 
be  found,  etc. 


142       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

I  told  him  that  he  had  diagnosed  our  condition  exactly,  but 
where  was  the  man?  He  then  proceeded  to  enumerate  the 
difficulties  which  beset  any  one  who  was  prominently  identified 
with  either  of  the  two  great  parties,  and  finally  asked  me  what 
I  thought  of  Colonel  John  C.  Fremont.  I  replied  that  he  was 
the  son-in-law  of  Colonel  Thomas  H.  Benton,  then  a  Senator  of 
great  reputation  and  influence  from  the  State  of  Missouri, 
who  was  very  popular  with  the  Northern  Democracy ;  that  he 
had  no  previous  political  history  or  relations  to  embarrass 
him;  that  he  had  acquired  a  national  reputation  by  his  ex 
plorations  and  surveys  .through  and  beyond  the  Bocky  Moun 
tains,  and  by  his  part  in  planting  the  flag  of  the  United  States 
in  California  before  the  Government  had  taken  possession  of 
it,  and  that  he  seemed  open  to  fewer  objections  than  any  other 
person  I  could  think  of,  equally  or  more  prominent.  Banks 
said  the  impressions  he  had  received  from  a  casual  acquain 
tance  with  Colonel  Fremont  and  his  wife  in  Washington  led 
him  to  think  him  a  candidate  worth  considering.  As  I  agreed 
with  him  entirely,  lacking  only  personal  information  about  the 
man's  capacity  as  an  executive  officer,  he  proposed  that  we 
should  go  and  call  upon  the  Pathfinder,  a  name  by  which  he 
was  already  familiarly  known  to  the  press.  Fremont  was 
stopping  at  the  Metropolitan,  a  hotel  built  on  the  site  once 
famous  as  Niblo's  Garden. 

We  called  there  about  ten  o'clock  the  following  morning. 
Fremont  was  not  yet  up.  He  did  not,  however,  keep  us  wait 
ing  long.  He  impressed  me  more  favorably  than  I  had 
expected.  His  manner  was  refined  and  dignified.  Our  con 
versation  had  no  special  political  significance,  though  it  was 
so  directed  that  he  could  not  fail  to  infer  that  our  visit  was 
something  more  than  a  formal  call.  Not  long  after  this  inter 
view  I  invited  a  few  prominent  gentlemen  of  both  parties,  but 
with  Free  Soil  proclivities,  to  my  house  to  consider  the 
feasibility  of  making  Fremont  our  candidate  for  the  Presi 
dency,  and  especially  to  meet  the  venerable  Frank  P.  Blair,  of 
Washington,  who  chanced  to  be  in  town  at  the  time,  the  guest 
of  General  Dix,  I  believe.  I  remember  but  three  of  the  others 
who  were  present,  They  were  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  Edwin  P. 
Morgan,  afterwards  Governor  and  United  States  Senator,  and 
Edward  Miller.  All  of  the  party  but  Mr.  Tilden  favored 
Fremont.  Mr.  Tilden  was  under  the  impression  that  he  could 


JOHN  C.  FREMONT  AND  COLONEL  BENTON      143 

be  more  useful  inside  than  outside  of  the  Democratic  party, 
and  I  think  instinctively  hesitated  to  commit  himself  in  such 
an  important  matter  to  a  man  he  had  never  seen,  and  whose 
qualifications  for  such  an  important  position  as  the  chief 
magistrate  of  this  country  had  never  been  demonstrated. 

After  the  other  guests  were  gone  I  asked  Mr.  Blair  to  em 
brace  an  early  opportunity  of  seeing  Colonel  Benton,  one  of 
his  most  intimate  friends,  and  securing,  if  he  could,  the  colo 
nel's  approval  of  the  nomination,  without  which  it  would  not 
be  worth  while  to  go  further.  It  was  not  long  before  I  received 
an  answer  from  Mr.  Blair  which  warranted  us  to  go  ahead.  I 
commenced  at  once  the  preparation  of  a  campaign  life  of 
Fremont,  of  which  from  two  to  three  columns  appeared  every 
successive  week— on  Saturdays,  I  think— in  the  Evening  Post. 
In  preparing  the  first  chapter  I  was  obliged  to  apply  to  Mrs. 
Fremont  for  information  about  her  husband's  parentage  and 
early  life,  of  which  nothing  was  then  generally  known.  She 
very  kindly  offered  to  write  that  part  of  her  husband's  story 
for  me,  and  the  first  chapter  of  that  biography,  a  few  weeks 
later  published  in  a  volume  by  Derby  &  Jackson,  was  printed 
from  her  manuscript,  which  I  still  retain.  Her  account  of  the 
colonel 's  origin  and  early  life  was  not  as  full  as  I  desired,  but 
it  answered  our  purpose  very  well. 

The  New  York  Tribune  issued  simultaneously  with  mine  a 
pamphlet  about  Fremont,  attributed  to  the  pen  of  the  late 
William  H.  Bartlett,  who  remonstrated  with  the  late  Thurlow 
Weed  for  commending  my  story  in  his  Albany  Journal.  Be 
cause  I  had  given  a  full  account  of  a  duel  in  which  Fremont 
had  been  engaged  he  intimated  that  the  publication  of  those 
particulars  would  prove  fatal  to  the  candidate.  Mr.  Weed 
entertained  a  different  opinion,  somewhat  to  the  discomfiture 
of  Mr.  Bartlett.  In  spite  of  the  meagreness  of  the  material 
and  the  haste  with  which  my  book  was  compiled,  it  had  a  very 
flattering  sale. 

I  may  as  well  here  make  a  confession  which  reflects  but  little 
credit  upon  my  business  habits.  When  the  campaign  was  over, 
which  of  course  arrested  the  sale  of  the  book,  the  publishers 
sent  me  three  or  four  notes,  payable  in  three,  six,  nine,  and 
possibly  twelve  months,  for  amounts  of  which  I  have  no  record 
and  have  entirely  forgotten,  but  which  purported  to  represent 
my  royalties  on  the  book,  the  sales  of  which,  as  nearly  as  I  can 


144        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

recollect,  were  about  40,000  copies.  I  handed  the  notes  to  my 
business  partner  with  the  request  that  he  would  put  them  in 
my  box  in  the  office  safe.  I  never  thought  of  them  again  until, 
on  my  return  from  an  absence  in  Europe  of  some  two  years,  in 
1860-61,  in  looking  over  papers  that  had  accumulated  in  my 
absence,  I  found  these  notes.  Meantime  Derby  &  Jackson  had 
failed.  I  sent  the  notes  to  Mr.  Derby,  the  only  member  of  the 
firm  whom  I  had  known,  and  told  him  that  I  did  not  want  the 
notes  and  that  I  assumed  he  would  pay  them  whenever  he  was 
able.  I  am  quite  sure  he  will,  for  Derby  was  a  good  and  alto 
gether  honorable  man.  He  can  never  pay  me  in  the  currency 
of  our  mint,  but  he  is  sure  to,  in  the  currency  of  the  realm  for 
which  he  departed  some  twenty  years  ago.  The  last  money 
my  friend  Derby  ever  earned  in  this  world,  I  think,  must  have 
been  his  salary  as  a  dispatch  clerk  in  the  State  Department 
of  Washington  while  Mr.  Seward  was  Secretary  of  State. 

To  complete  this  story,  which  commenced  with  the  triumph  of 
Banks  as  Speaker,  and  his  visit  to  the  Evening  Post  office  not 
long  after,  it  is  necessary  to  add  a  brief  statement  of  the  result 
to  which  such  apparently  accidental  and  trivial  incidents  may 
have  been  more  or  less  contributory.  At  the  election  of 
November,  1856,  Buchanan  was  chosen  President.  The  popu 
lar  vote  in  the  nation  at  large  stood:  Buchanan,  1,838,169; 
Fremont,  1,341,264 ;  Fillmore,  874,534.  Buchanan  received  the 
votes  of  fourteen  slave  States  and  five  free  States,  a  total  of 
174  electors ;  Fremont  the  vote  of  eleven  free  States,  a  total  of 
114  electors ;  and  Fillmore  the  vote  of  one  slave  State,  a  total 
of  eight  electors,  but  not  the  vote  of  a  single  free  State. 

I  am  persuaded  now,  as  I  was  then,  that  it  was  impossible 
to  have  selected  another  equally  available  candidate  for  our 
purpose.  I  became  as  fully  convinced  before  the  colonel  died 
that,  much  as  the  country  was  to  be  congratulated  for  his 
nomination,  it  was  equally  to  be  congratulated  upon  his  defeat. 
He  was  in  no  proper  sense  a  statesman.  He  owed  such  success 
as  he  had  at  this  election— and  it  was  very  flattering— largely 
to  his  wife,  a  remarkably  capable  and  accomplished  woman; 
to  her  father,  through  whose  influence  with  the  Democratic 
portion  of  the  coalition  he  was  naturally  expected  to  profit, 
and  to  his  utterly  neuter  gender  in  politics.  He  rendered  his 
country  as  a  candidate  all  the  service  he  was  capable  of  ren 
dering  it,  by  incarnating  in  that  character  the  principles  of  the 


FREMONT'S  NOMINATION  FOR  PRESIDENT      145 

Free  Soil  party,  and  thus  combining  in  the  free  States  the 
forces  upon  which  the  perpetuity  of  our  Union  was  to  be 
dependent,  and  the  doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty  vindicated 
as  it  had  never  been  before.  He  lived  long  enough,  however,  to 
satisfy  every  one  that  he  might  have  proved  a  disastrous  fail 
ure  as  a  President.  A  wedge  may  be  useful  in  splitting  a  log, 
but  useless  in  converting  either  of  its  parts  into  a  chest  of 
drawers. 


VI 

EXCURSION  TO  HAYTI  AND  ST.  THOMAS 
1853-1854 

question  of  the  freedom  of  the  African  and  his 
capacity  for  self-government  continued  to  grow  from 
JL  month  to  month  and  from  year  to  year  more  and  more 
the  great  concern  of  the  nation.  In  the  winter  of  1853-54  I 
determined  to  visit  the  Africans'  most  accessible  and  ap 
parently  their  most  successful  experiment  in  self-government. 

I  was  encouraged  to  take  this  step  by  a  casual  acquain 
tance  with  Monsieur  Simonise,  the  Agent  of  Hayti  in  New 
York,  whose  account  of  his  government  and  what  was  going  on 
in  the  island  interested  me.  At  his  suggestion,  I  suppose,  Mr. 
E.  C.  Clarke,  the  Consular  Agent  of  Hayti  in  Boston,  hear 
ing  of  my  purpose,  sent  me  a  number  of  letters  to  Haytian 
correspondents,  and  with  them  I  sailed  from  New  York,  in  the 
bark  Clara  Windsor,  on  the  23d  of  November,  1853.  I  reached 
Port-au-Prince  on  the  21st  of  December.  Before  we  docked, 
Mr.  B.  P.  Hunt,  a  New  England  merchant  settled  in  Hayti 
and  one  of  the  gentlemen  to  whom  I  brought  letters  from  Mr. 
Clarke,  came  on  board  and  persuaded  me  to  become  his  guest. 
Of  my  sojourn  in  Hayti,  interesting  and  instructive  as  it  was 
to  me,  I  will  trouble  the  reader  at  present  only  with  brief 
extracts  from  my  diary,  relating  chiefly  to  his  Majesty  the 
Emperor  Soulouque,  then  the  sovereign  of  the  French  end  of 
the  island. 

1  '  Soulouque  is  generally  reported  here  to  have  been  a  slave 
of  the  Chevalier  Viallet,  a  man  of  color,  but  taken  by  many  to  be 
white,  an  estimable  person  to  whom  Soulouque  was  much  at 
tached.  He  resided  at  Petit  Goave,  where  Soulouque  as  well 
as  his  wife  was  born.  If  Soulouque  was  a  slave  he  must  have 

146 


SOULOUQUE  CELEBRATES  INDEPENDENCE  147 

received  his  freedom  very  young,  as  slavery  was  abolished  in 
the  colony  in  1793.  When  Soulouque  was  made  President  in 
1847,  Viallet,  though  a  very  old  man,  came  down  to  pay  his 
respects  to  him.  The  Emperor  went  out  to  meet  him  as  he 
approached  the  palace,  and,  bowing  low,  kissed  his  hands. 
Viallet  said  that  he  had  come  there  to  pay  his  respects  to  the 
Emperor,  and  that  he  was  ashamed  to  have  the  Emperor  treat 
him  thus  in  public.  The  Emperor  replied  that  Viallet  had 
been  his  benefactor  and  was  entitled  to  his  homage.  Viallet 
died  about  two  years  ago.  The  Emperor  was  elected  Presi 
dent  in  March,  1847,  and  declared  Emperor  on  August  26, 
1849.  I  understand  from  Mr.  Hunt  that  the  Emperor  has  had 
1  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin '  read  to  him  twice,  and  that  he  wrote  a 
letter  to  Mrs.  Stowe  thanking  her  for  the  pleasure  he  had 
derived  from  her  work.  The  letter  reached  the  United  States 
after  she  left  for  England,  and  whether  she  ever  received  it  or 
not  is  uncertain. 

* i  The  Emperor  is  now  sixty-seven  years  old,  and,  it  is  said, 
has  shown  symptoms  of  decline.  During  his  late  visit  to 
Jacmel  he  was  understood  to  have  had  a  second  attack  of 
apoplexy,  a  disease  to  which  his  structure  shows  that  he  is 
constitutionally  inclined.  A  change  of  affairs  here,  therefore, 
may  occur  at  any  moment.  The  Emperor  has  only  one  child, 
the  Princess  Olivia. 

"He  receives  one  dollar  on  each  bag  of  coffee  exported  by 
Lloyd  for  account  of  the  government,  his  income  from  which 
source  alone  is  not  less  than  £150,000;  he  has  it  sold  in  Eng 
land  rather  than  here,  that  none  of  his  subjects  may  know  how 
much  it  brings. ' ' 

On  the  29th  of  December  I  received  the  following  invitation 
from  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  to  celebrate  the  fifty-first 
anniversary  of  the  independence  of  Hayti : 


POKT-AU-PKINCE,  le  29  decembre  1853. 
Monsieur, 

Dimanche,  ler  Janvier  1854,  est  le  51e  Anniversaire  de  Pln- 
dependance  d 'Haiti. 

J'ai  Phonneur  de  vous  inviter  a  la  solennite  qui  aura  lieu 
a  cette  occasion. 

S.  M.  PEmpereur  recevra  la  ville  a  deux  heures  et  demie 


148       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTI.VE  LIFE 

de  Papres-midi.     Ci-inclus  le  programme  de  la  ceremonie. 
Agreez,  Monsieur,  1 'assurance  de  ma  haute  consideration. 
Le  Ministre  des  Belations  Exterieures, 

DUFRENE. 
MONSK.  BlGELOW, 

au  Port-au-Prince. 

The  "programme  de  la  ceremonie"  occupied  four  printed 
quarto  pages. 

' '  The  gate  of  the  palace  grounds  as  we  entered  was  guarded 
hy  a  file  of  soldiers,  and  a  couple  of  regiments  were  parading 
inside.  I  was  equally  gratified  and  surprised  to  encounter  no 
crowd.  In  fact,  we  did  not  meet  half  a  dozen  persons  besides 
soldiers  till  we  mounted  the  steps  of  the  palace.  An  officer 
invited  us  to  walk  into  a  large  waiting-room,  where  we  found 
some  forty  or  fifty  persons,  consisting  of  the  clergy,  the  mer 
chants,  the  military  and  naval  staff  of  the  Emperor,  the  per 
sonal  staff  of  the  cabinet  ministers,  the  consuls,  and  others 
who  were  on  the  same  errand  as  ourselves. 

"In  the  fulness  of  time  we  were  waited  upon  by  the  grand 
chamberlain  and  requested  to  follow  him.  We  did  so,  and 
were  ushered  into  an  apartment  considerably  longer  than  the 
one  we  had  left,  and  about  as  wide.  At  the  end  farthest  from 
us,  on  a  sort  of  dais  elevated  two  steps  from  the  floor,  sat  a 
remarkably  black  and  expensively  dressed  man,  whom  I  at 
once  recognized  as  Faustin  I.  He  was  dressed  in  a  blue  cloth 
coat,  ornamented  with  sundry  orders  and  stars  and  abounding 
with  diamonds;  light  drab  cloth  pantaloons,  striped  with 
heavy  gold  lace  down  the  sides,  and  a  white  satin  vest  also  stiff 
with  gold  lace  and  partially  covered  by  the  coat,  which  was 
fastened  with  a  single  button  at  the  throat.  He  wore  a  richly 
jewelled  straight  sword  by  his  side,  and  held  a  gold-headed 
cane  in  his  right  hand.  As  we  entered  he  was  sitting  in  an 
armchair  all  gilded  except  the  seat,  bowing  to  a  deputation 
which  was  just  taking  leave.  In  front  of  him  for  a  distance  of 
about  twenty  feet  a  crimson  carpet  was  spread,  the  farthest 
extremity  of  which  bounds  the  space  always  to  be  kept  be 
tween  him  and  his  visitors. 

"On  either  side  of  the  Emperor,  but  upon  the  floor,  stood  his 
ministers  and  the  principal  officers  of  the  imperial  household, 


OFFICIAL  RECEPTION  BY  SOULOUQUE         149 

perhaps  twenty  in  all.  As  we  advanced,  we  were  received  by 
M.  Dufrene,  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  and  presented  by 
name  to  the  Emperor,  who  had  arisen  from  his  seat  at  our 
approach.  We  bowed,  and  the  Emperor  bowed.  We  bowed  a 
second  time,  and  he  bowed  a  second  time.  As  this  was  the 
sum  total  of  our  promised  entertainment,  there  seemed  to  be 
nothing  left  for  us  to  do  but  to  retire.  We  proceeded  to  back 
out  of  the  room  and  make  way  for  the  next  party  which  was 
approaching.  When  we  reached  the  door  my  companion 
seized  me  by  the  arm  and  gave  me  to  understand  by  his  ex 
ample  that  another  salutation  was  expected  from  us.  As  I  had 
nothing  else  to  do,  I  indulged  his  Majesty  with  a  third  bow, 
which  was  rewarded  as  its  predecessors  had  been,  and  then  we 
retired  by  a  different  door  from  that  through  which  we  had 
entered,  and  which  led  into  the  waiting-room  we  had  first  oc 
cupied. 

' i  We  had  scarcely  gone  out  when  Delva,  the  Lord  Chancellor, 
came  to  us  and  said  that  it  would  be  agreeable  to  the  Emperor 
to  have  us  return  and  assist  at  the  reception.  This  was  a  com 
pliment  to  us,  as  strangers,  for  which  I  felt  extremely  grate 
ful,  my  curiosity  being  far  from  satisfied  with  what  I  had  yet 
witnessed.  Back  we  went.  As  we  entered,  the  foreign 
consuls,  some  half-dozen  in  number,  were  presented. 

"  After  bowing  to  the  Emperor,  Mr.  Byron,  the  British  vice- 
consul,  addressed  him  in  behalf  of  the  consular  body,  felici 
tated  him  upon  the  prosperity  and  tranquillity  of  the  country 
at  the  close  of  another  year,  and  wished  him  a  long  reign,  and 
life  and  health  to  enjoy  them.  The  Emperor  thanked  him,  in  a 
tone  scarcely  audible,  for  the  kind  wishes  of  himself  and  those 
for  whom  he  spoke,  and  desired  the  same  blessings  to  'the 
governments  they  represented,  etc.  His  manner  was  a  little 
embarrassed,  and  what  he  said  was  delivered  in  a  colloquial 
tone,  only  audible  to  those  standing  quite  near  him.  At  the 
request  of  the  chancellor,  the  consuls  also  remained  to  assist 
at  the  subsequent  receptions.  After  them,  deputations  from 
the  army,  the  navy,  the  miinicipal  councils,  the  health  officer, 
the  public  printer  and  others  were  received.  A  brief  speech 
was  made  by  each  deputation  through  a  doyen  selected  for  the 
occasion,  to  which  the  Emperor  would  sometimes  rise  and 
reply  and  sometimes  neither  rise  nor  reply.  At  the  conclusion 
of  each  of  the  speeches,  except  those  of  the  consuls,  the  spokes- 


150       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

man  of  the  deputation  would  swing  his  arm  into  the  air  and, 
turning  to  his  companions,  cry,  'Vive  I'Empereur!'  whereat  his 
companions  would  respond  in  a  tone  much  lower  and  anything 
but  enthusiastic,  'Vive  I'Empereur!'  Then  followed  another 
swing  of  the  arm  and  another  cry  of  'Vive  I'Emperatrice!' 
'Vive  I'Emperatrice!'  in  the  same  depressing  tones,  was  the 
response.  A  third  swing  and  a  third  cry  of  'Vive  la  Princesse 
Olive!'  and  a  fourth  of  'Vive  la  famille  imperiale!'  were  each 
echoed  in  turn  by  the  deputation,  at  the  close  of  which  they 
bowed  twice,  and,  backing  to  the  door,  bowed  again  and  with 
drew.  All  the  ceremonial  was  well  enough  but  the  vivas,  which 
were  excessively  ludicrous,  as  the  responses  were  given  in  a 
much  lower  key  than  they  were  pitched  in  by  the  leader.  It 
sounded  like  nothing  so  much  as  the  reading  of  the  Litany  in 
church,  and  was  conducted  with  about  the  same  gravity.  These 
demonstrations  of  involuntary  enthusiasm  were  repeated  by 
every  deputation,  and  with  like  effects.  The  absurdity  of  the 
whole  thing  was  greatly  aggravated  in  my  eyes  when  I  ob 
served  that  no  one  else  seemed  to  see  anything  laughable  in  it. 
If  they  had  all  been  marching  to  the  gallows  they  could  not 
have  been  more  earnest  and  solemn. 

"When  our  curiosity  was  satisfied,  which  was  before  the 
reception  had  concluded,  we  withdrew,  grateful  for  an  oppor 
tunity  of  seeing  how  much  the  Emperor  of  France  has  been 
indebted  to  the  Emperor  of  Hayti  for  the  system  of  court 
etiquette  which  divides  him  from  his  subjects,  and  what 
humiliating  tribute  the  most  arbitrary  despots  are  sometimes 
obliged  to  pay  to  public  opinion.  The  next  number  of  the 
Moniteur  Haytien  spoke  of  the  rapturous  and  irrepressible 
enthusiasm  with  which  every  word  from  the  Emperor  and  all 
the  vivas  were  received,  and  did  all  it  could  to  convey  the  idea 
that  the  people  were  perfectly  beside  themselves  with  joy  at 
being  permitted  to  see  the  Emperor,  at  finding  him  so  well,  and 
at  the  prospect  of  his  reign  being  continued.  Perhaps  they 
were,  but  I  thought  they  acted  more  like  the  lads  at  Dothe- 
boys  Hall  when  called  upon  to  bear  testimony  to  the  abun 
dance  and  excellence  of  Mrs.  Squeers's  dinner  menu." 

Emperors  and  despots  find  it  as  necessary  to  have  the 
simulacrum  of  popular  devotion  as  republican  presidents  to 
have  the  reality. 

' '  I  must  not  forget  to  state  that  while  we  were  assisting  the 


MY  EECEPTION  BY  SOULOUQUE  151 

Emperor  to  entertain  his  company,  and  standing,  word  was 
brought  us  by  Dufrene  that  we  might  take  our  seats.  He 
mentioned  privately  to  Mr.  Simonise  that  we  must  rise  when 
the  Emperor  rose.  After  that  we  had  a  comfortable  time. 
The  Emperor  two  or  three  times  said  a  few  words  in  reply  to 
the  addresses  made  to  him,  but  not  a  word  was  audible  to  me. 

6 '  I  found  the  Emperor  to  be  a  clumsily  built  man,  and  awk 
ward,  but  endowed  apparently  with  great  muscular  strength. 
His  back  is  very  broad ;  his  legs  short  and  stout. 

' '  The  day  or  two  before  we  were  to  leave  his  dominions  the 
Emperor  accorded  me  a  reception.  About  two  o'clock  Mr. 
Hunt  and  I  called  for  Mr.  Simonise  and  reached  the  palace 
about  a  quarter  after  three.  We  waited  about  a  quarter  of  an 
hour,  when  we  were  invited  to  enter  the  salle  de  reception 
where  we  had  seen  the  Emperor  on  the  previous  occasion. 

"We  found  him  standing  erect  with  his  cocked  hat  on  his 
head,  but  without  the  cane  which  he  had  held  the  other  day. 
He  was  dressed  as  gorgeously  as  before.  We  had  to  bow 
three  or  four  times  as  we  approached  him,  and  when  we  were 
as  near  as  Simonise  thought  it  safe  to  go,  he  presented  me  as 
a  distinguished  stranger  who  visited  this  island  as  a  friend, 
desirous  of  correcting  the  errors  into  which  his  countrymen 
had  fallen  regarding  Hayti,  and  made  a  long  speech  about  my 
early  devotion  to  the  Haytian  cause. 

1 1  When  Simonise  paused  to  take  breath,  the  Emperor  said : 
'We  are  a  Christian  people.  We  have  two  arms  and  two  legs 
like  other  men.  We  have  only  desired  to  act  like  Christians 
toward  the  Dominicans.  We  do  not  desire  war,  but  peace.  We 
don't  wish  to  shed  blood,  but  to  make  all  the  people  of  the 
island  prosperous  and  happy.' 

' '  So  much  the  Emperor  spoke  slowly  and  in  tolerably  good 
French.  Before  the  Emperor  spoke  I  had  desired  Simonise  to 
assure  him  of  the  gratification  I  felt  in  being  permitted  the 
opportunity  of  calling  and  paying  my  respects  in  person. 
Simonise  went  on  with  a  long  speech  about  his  usefulness, 
through  me,  in  exposing  the  intrigues  of  Walsh,  and  gave  a 
history  of  the  Emperor's  cabinet  which  he  said  he  had  im 
pressed  upon  me,  and  he  occupied  pretty  much  all  the  time, 
intentionally,  doubtless,  to  spare  the  Emperor  the  necessity 
of  saying  anything.  We  then  took  our  leave,  and  in  two  hours 
I  was  on  horseback  on  my  way  to  Jacmel  for  the  steamer  to  St. 


152       KETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Thomas,  where  we  arrived  in  her  Majesty's  mail-steamer 
Teviot  the  12th  of  January,  1855,  and  secured  comfortable 
quarters  at  Bonelli's  Hotel.'* 

The  island  of  St.  Thomas  was  ravaged  by  the  cholera,  of 
which  disease  one-tenth  of  the  population  found  homes  in  the 
cemetery  during  the  month  in  which  I  was  there. 

"I  was  told  there  the  same  evening  of  the  death  from  con 
sumption  of  Isaac  B.  Headley,  the  brother  of  the  author  of 
1  Napoleon  and  his  Marshals. '  He  was  formerly  a  merchant  at 
Tallahassee,  Florida.  He  arrived  here  from  New  York  about 
two  months  since.  I  could  not  but  feel  what  a  dismal  destiny 
it  was  for  a  poor  fellow  to  die  so,  at  a  hotel,  away  from  all  his 
friends,  in  a  strange  place,  without  a  soul  to  communicate  a 
last  wish  with  any  confidence  that  it  would  be  remembered  till 
he  was  buried.  The  consciousness  of  my  own  lonely  position 
here,  without  an  acquaintance  a  week  old  and  with  the  arrows 
of  death  flying  around  me  at  a  fearful  rate,  makes  me  feel  poor 
Headley 's  fate  more  sensibly. 

"I  found  a  Danish  lawyer  there  of  the  name  of  Kierolf,  who 
is  expecting  to  go  on  to  New  York  in  the  steamer.  He  was 
taken  sick  yesterday  and  thinks  he  has  the  cholera.  He  is  ter 
ribly  frightened  and  is  likely  to  make  himself  sick  with  the 
nostrums  with  which  he  is  stuffing  himself. 


"ST.  THOMAS,  Saturday,  Jan.  21, 1854. 

"Mr.  Helm1  asked  me  this  morning  to  act  as  one  of  the  pall 
bearers  at  Mr.  Headley 's  funeral,  to  which  I  consented.  Mrs. 
Bonelli  says  that  some  people  speak  of  the  cholera  as  a  just 
punishment ;  that  the  blacks  of  the  island  contemplated  an  in 
surrection  during  the  holidays,  when  they  are  assembled  in 
large  numbers,  and  that  but  for  this  disease  the  town  might 
now  be  burned  and  many  of  the  people  robbed  and  murdered 
as  they  were  in  Tortola  in  September  last.  She  quoted  a  re 
mark  made  by  a  negro  in  town  shortly  after  the  cholera  broke 
out,  to  the  effect  that  that  also  was  the  hand  of  God  extended 
to  prevent  the  blacks  from  doing  what  they  intended.  This 
fellow  has  since  died.  On  Christmas  Day,  when  the  insurrec 
tion  would  have  taken  place,  seventy-five  blacks  had  died.  At 
1  The  United  States  Consul  at  St.  Thomas. 


ST.  THOMAS  AND  THE   CHOLERA  153 

Tortola  the  blacks  burned  the  town  and  drove  all  the  whites 
off.  Many  came  here. 

"The  funeral  of  Mr.  Headley  was  solemnized  this  afternoon 
at  two  o'clock,  from  the  office  of  the  American  Consul.  All 
the  American  shipping  in  the  harbor  was  at  halfmast,  and 
about  twenty  Americans,  including  Captain  Prendergast  of 
the  Columbia  and  five  or  ten  of  her  officers,  were  present.  Mr. 
Headley '&  remains  were  taken  in  a  metallic  coffin  to  the  Gov 
ernment  vault.  The  poor  fellow  left  an  orphan  child. " 

After  considerable  delay  and  hearing  that  the  steamer  for 
New  York  had  been  withdrawn,  Mr.  Kierolf  and  I  succeeded  in 
securing  a  Baltimore  schooner,  the  Alabama,  Captain  Lowry, 
to  take  us  to  New  Orleans.  After  a  voyage  of  just  thirteen 
days  we  entered  the  North  East  Pass  of  the  Mississippi. 

As  soon  as  we  reached  a  wharf  at  which  any  Mississippi 
steamers  touched,  I  took  my  leave  of  Captain  Lowry  and  his 
schooner,  with  the  least  possible  desire  ever  to  see  either 
again.  In  four  or  five  days  I  was  with  my  family  in  New 
York. 

My  two  expeditions  in  1850  and  in  1853  to  the  Antilles  were 
undertaken  for  the  especial  purpose  of  studying  the  African 
as  he  had  developed  in  freedom.  The  result  was  somewhat 
different  from  what  I  had  anticipated.  My  antipathy  to 
slavery  was  increased  rather  than  diminished,  but  I  became 
more  convinced  that  it  was  far  more  pernicious  to  the  white 
master  than  to  the  colored  slave  j  that  the  white  master  appro 
priated  to  himself  faster  and  far  more  of  the  savagery  of  the 
African  slave  than  the  African  slave  appropriates  civilization 
from  his  white  master.  I  am  more  than  ever  persuaded  that 
no  man  can  be  invested  with  absolute  authority  over  another 
man  or  race  without  experiencing  constant  moral  deteriora 
tion  as  much  more  rapid  than  the  elevation  of  his  slave  by  his 
example  as  he  is  superior  in  intelligence  to  the  slave.  I  find  it 
difficult  to  rid  myself  of  the  conviction  that  the  lawlessness 
with  which  the  African  criminal  is  treated  in  our  States  where 
slavery  once  prevailed,  will  diminish  about  as  fast  as  the  white 
population  that  was  reared  under  the  influence  of  slavery  shall 
have  gone  where  the  wicked  cease  from  troubling  and  the 
weary  are  at  rest.  The  student  who  shall  seek  for  an  explana 
tion  of  the  decline  of  the  ancient  democracies  of  Greece  and 


154       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Borne  will  find  it  in  the  demoralizing  influence  upon  the  ruling 
class  of  their  conquered  enemies  converted  into  bondmen,  and 
not  elsewhere. 

Owing  to  my  preoccupation  with  the  preparations  for  our 
departure  from  St.  Thomas,  I  failed  to  make  any  record  in 
my  diary  of  quite  the  most  important  event  which  occurred  to 
me  in  the  course  of  my  visit  to  the  Antilles  in  the  winter  of 
1853-54.  During  the  second  week  of  my  sojourn  on  the  island 
of  St.  Thomas,  Mr.  Kierolf  and  I  chanced  both  to  be  seated  in 
the  spacious  but  then  otherwise  deserted  dining-hall  of  Bo- 
nelli  's  Hotel,  he  at  one  end  and  I  at  the  other,  both  with  books 
in  our  hands.  I  was  reading  the  Bible.  I  had  read  everything 
readable  that  I  had  brought  with  me  from  home,  had  bought 
and  read  everything  readable  in  the  solitary  book-store  at  St. 
Thomas.  I  had  done  the  island  thoroughly,  and  my  Bible  was 
all  that  was  left  upon  which  to  expend  my  superfluity  of 
leisure.  It  so  happened  that  I  was  reading  the  twelfth  chapter 
of  Genesis,  which  gives  the  account  of  Abram,  who  had  been 
driven  by  a  famine  into  Egypt.  When  I  had  finished  the  chap 
ter  I  said  to  Mr.  Kierolf,  "Is  it  not  extraordinary  that  this 
book  should  be  accepted  by  the  most  highly  civilized  nations  of 
the  earth  as  the  Word  of  God!  Just  listen. ' '  I  then  read  the 
verses  in  which  the  patriarch  passed  off  Sarah,  his  wife,  for 
his  sister. 

* '  This  Abram, ' '  said  I,  "  is  the  man  whom  it  is  pretended  the 
Lord  had  selected  from  all  the  people  of  the  earth  as  most 
deserving  of  His  favor,  and  promised  to  make  of  him  a  great 
nation ;  to  bless  them  that  bless  him ;  to  curse  them  that  curse 
him,  and  that  in  him  all  the  families  of  the  earth  should  be 
blessed.  And  yet  almost  the  first  thing  we  hear  of  him  is  his 
commanding  his  wife  to  tell  a  falsehood,  which  inevitably 
exposed  her  to  insult  and  degradation,  apparently  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  saving  himself  from  apprehended,  but,  as  the  event 
proved,  imaginary  dangers.  Does  not  the  Egyptian,  whom  the 
Bible  represents  as  the  oppressor  of  God's  people,  appear, 
according  to  our  standards  at  least,  to  have  been  the  better 
man  of  the  two ! ' ' 

"Well,  yes,"  replied  Mr.  Kierolf,  "it  does  appear  so  at 
first." 

"But,"  said  I,  "does  it  not  appear  so  all  the  time!" 


MEET  A  DISCIPLE  OF  SWEDENBORG          155 

Mr.  Kierolf  seemed  rather  to  avoid  a  direct  answer  to  my 
question,  and  in  turn  asked  me  if  I  had  ever  read  any  of  the 
writings  of  Swedenborg.  I  said  that  I  could  not  say  that  I 
had.  "Well,"  said  Mr.  Kierolf,  "in  his  ' Arcana  Ccelestia' 
Swedenborg  has  given  an  exposition  of  the  chapter  you  have 
been  reading,  which  perhaps  would  satisfy  you  that  there  is 
more  in  it  than  you  seem  to  suspect. ' '  I  intimated  mildly  that 
there  was  no  obscurity  about  the  meaning,  and  that  I  did  not 
see  how  any  one  could  get  any  impression  of  those  verses 
different  from  mine.  Mr.  Kierolf  then  went  on  to  explain 
something  about  an  interior  meaning  and  spiritual  correspon 
dence,  etc.  Failing  entirely  to  understand  what  he  was  talking 
about,  I  asked  him  if  he  had  the  work  to  which  he  referred.  He 
said  he  had  it  somewhere,  but  he  was  not  sure  that  he  had  it 
with  him  in  his  luggage  at  the  hotel ;  he  would  see.  He  left  the 
room  and  after  a  little  returned  with  the  first  volume  of  the 
"Arcana  Coelestia,"  which  contained,  as  I  found  on  examina 
tion,  Swedenborg 's  exposition  of  the  verses  of  which  we  had 
been  speaking.  After  running  my  eyes  over  the  title-page  and 
the  preface  and  some  introductory  paragraphs  to  the  twelfth 
chapter,  I  read  what  he  proceeded  to  give  as  the  internal  sense 
of  the  chapter  which  arrested  my  attention.  I  then  read 
Swedenborg 's  exposition  of  what  he  terms  the  interior  or 
spiritual  meaning  of  each  verse,  I  might  say  of  almost  every 
word  of  each  verse  of  the  chapter,  occupying  forty-five  broad 
octavo  pages.  I  could  not  make  much  out  of  his  exegesis,  but  I 
was  a  little  disappointed  in  one  respect.  Nothing  was  further 
from  my  thoughts  than  to  suppose  that  in  this  book,  written 
over  a  hundred  years  ago,  of  which  I  had  never  before  seen  a 
copy,  and  to  which  in  my  not  inconsiderable  and  varied  read 
ing  of  the  English  classics  I  had  rarely  seen  an  allusion,  I 
should  find  anything  that  could  change  or  in  the  least  modify 
my  opinion  of  Abram  or  of  the  Bible.  I  read  from  curiosity 
merely,  expecting  to  drop  the  book  as  soon  as  I  came  to  some 
thing—and  I  did  not  in  the  least  doubt  I  soon  should— that 
would  be  so  absurd,  or  improbable,  or  illogical,  as  would  jus 
tify  me,  without  rudeness,  in  returning  the  book  to  my  Danish 
friend  with  thanks. 

Though  I  understood  but  imperfectly  what  I  read,  I  did  not 
find  what  I  was  looking  for ;  I  found  nothing  that  I  could  point 
to  with  confidence  and  say, ' t  There  you  see  your  man  Sweden- 


156       KETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

borg  must  have  been  either  a  fool  or  an  impostor,  or  both." 
On  the  other  hand,  I  did  find  several  curious  and  striking 
things  which  piqued  my  curiosity.  For  example,  his  opening 
comments  on  the  first  verse  of  the  chapter  showed  me  that,  at 
least,  I  was  following  a  thoughtful  guide.  I  had  neither  heard 
nor  read  anything  like  it  before. 

1408.  These,  and  the  subsequent  circumstances,  historically  oc 
curred  as  they  are  related;  but  still  the  historical  facts  are  represen 
tative,  and  each  word  is  significative.  The  case  is  the  same  in  all  the 
historical  narratives  of  the  Word,  not  only  those  in  the  books  of  Moses 
but  also  those  in  the  books  of  Joshua,  of  Judges,  of  Samuel,  and  of  the 
Kings.  In  all  these,  nothing  is  apparent  but  a  mere  history ;  but  although 
history  is  related  in  the  literal  sense,  still  in  the  internal  sense  are 
heavenly  Arcana,  which  lie  concealed  within  and  which  can  never  be 
seen  so  long  as  the  mind,  together  with  the  eye,  is  confined  to  the 
historical  relations,  nor  are  they  revealed  until  the  mind  is  removed 
from  the  literal  sense.  The  Word  of  the  Lord  is  like  a  body  investing 
a  living  soul.  The  things  belonging  to  the  soul  do  not  impress  whilst 
the  mind  fixes  its  attention  only  on  corporeal  objects,  insomuch  that 
the  existence  of  the  soul  is  scarcely  credited  and  still  less  its  immor 
tality;  but  no  sooner  is  the  attention  of  the  mind  withdrawn  from 
things  corporeal  than  those  belonging  to  the  soul  and  to  life  begin  to 
appear.  This  is  the  reason,  not  only  that  corporeal  things  must  die 
before  man  can  be  born  again,  or  be  regenerated,  but  also  that  the 
body  itself  must  die  before  man  can  be  admitted  into  heaven  and  see 
the  things  of  heaven.  So  it  is  with  the  Word  of  the  Lord;  its  cor 
poreal  parts  are  the  containers  of  the  literal  sense,  whilst  the  attention 
of  the  mind  is  fixed  on  which,  the  internal  contents  do  not  appear; 
but  when  the  former  become  as  it  were  dead,  then  first  the  latter  are 
presented  to  view.  Nevertheless,  the  things  appertaining  to  the  literal 
sense  are  like  the  things  in  the  body  of  man,  viz. :  like  the  scientifics 
appertaining  to  the  memory,  which  are  derived  from  the  things  of 
sense,  and  which  form  common  vessels  containing  things  interior  or 
internal.  It  may,  hence,  be  known  that  the  vessels  are  one  thing  and 
the  essentials  contained  in  the  vessels  another.  The  vessels  are  natural 
things :  the  essentials  contained  in  the  vessels  are  things  spiritual  and 
celestial.  Thus,  also,  the  historical  facts  related  in  the  Word,  and  all 
the  particular  expressions  used  in  the  Word,  are  common,  natural,  yea, 
material  vessels,  containing  in  them  things  spiritual  and  celestial,  and 
these  cannot  possibly  be  brought  to  view,  except  by  the  internal  sense. 
This  may  appear  to  every  one,  solely  from  this  consideration,  that 
many  things  in  the  Word  are  spoken  according  to  appearances,  yea, 
according  to  the  fallacies  of  the  senses ;  as  what  is  said  that  the  Lord  is 


SWEDENBORG'S  THEOSOPHY  157 

angry,  that  he  punisheth,  that  he  curseth,  that  he  killeth,  and  many 
other  things  of  a  like  nature;  when,  nevertheless,  the  internal  sense 
teaches  quite  the  contrary,  namely,  that  the  Lord  cannot  possibly  be 
angry  and  punish,  much  less  can  he  curse  and  kill.  Still,  however, 
to  those  who,  from  simplicity  of  the  heart,  believe  the  Word  just  as 
they  comprehend  it  in  the  letter,  this  is  not  hurtful,  provided  they 
live  in  charity.  The  reason  is  because  the  Word  teaches  nothing  else 
than  that  every  one  is  to  live  in  charity  with  his  neighbor,  and  to  love 
the  Lord  above  all  things,  and  they  who  do  this  have  the  internal  con 
tents  of  the  Word  within  themselves,  and  then  the  fallacies  arising 
from  the  literal  sense  are  easily  dispelled. 

This  idea,  that  the  Word  had  degrees  of  significance  which 
varied  and  expanded  in  exact  proportion  to  the  spirituality  of 
a  man's  life,  was  one  that  had  never  crossed  my  mind  before, 
in  a  way  to  distinguish  the  Bible  from  Dante  or  Plato,  and  it 
seemed  to  me  as  though  there  might  perhaps  be  something  in 
it — but  what?  And  how  does  he  know,  and  what  are  the 
proofs?  Still  I  could  not  say,  "This  is  nonsense;  this  is  un- 
scriptural, ' '  though  the  distinction  made  between  the  chapters 
preceding  the  twelfth  and  those  following,  by  which  it  was 
claimed  that  the  narratives  of  the  first  eleven  chapters  of  the 
Old  Testament,  embracing  the  careers  of  Adam  and  Eve,  of 
Cain  and  Abel,  the  deluge,  the  building  of  the  tower  of  Babel, 
etc.,  "were  not  matters  of  true  history,"  had  somewhat  of  a 
heretical,  not  to  say  profane,  ring.  I  was,  however,  so  pleased 
to  find  that  any  one  had  found  a  way  of  retaining  his  faith  in 
the  divine  origin  of  the  Bible,  without  being  obliged  to  accept 
its  account  of  the  creation  as  history,  that  I  did  not  feel  like 
having  Swedenborg  burned  as  a  heretic  for  that.  In  spite  of 
these  redeeming  features  in  his  writings,  however,  I  did*  not 
in  the  least  despair  of  bringing  him  to  the  stake  before  I  had 
done  with  him.  I  persuaded  myself  that  he  had  built  up  a 
theosophy  from  his  imagination,  and  I  knew  enough  to  know 
that  no  human  imagination  was  capable  of  producing  anything 
of  that  kind  that  would  not  bristle  with  weak  points,  which 
could  not  all  escape  the  penetration  of  even  so  poor  a  theolo 
gian  as  I  was.  So  I  turned  to  other  places  to  see  what  he  said, 
for  example,  of  Abram's  subsequent  misrepresentation  to 
Abimelech,  what  of  Isaac's  repetition  of  the  same  fraud  in 
Gerar;  of  the  tower  of  Babel;  of  Hagar;  of  Jacob  and  his 
mother's  scheme  to  defraud  Esau  of  his  birthright.  In  this 


158       BETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

way  I  spent  the  entire  day  and  looked  through  the  whole  vol 
ume.  Much  of  it  was  too  mystical  to  be  intelligible  to  me 
then,  but,  to  my  mortification,  it  began  to  dawn  upon  me  that 
it  was  unintelligible  to  me  much  for  the  same  reason  as  the 
"Mechanique  Celeste"  would  have  been.  While  I  ran  upon 
many  things  that  were  quite  new  to  me  and  seemed  wise,  I  did 
not  find  anything  upon  which  I  could  move  to  put  the  author 
out  of  court.  On  the  contrary,  the  desire  to  read  on  grew  by 
what  it  fed  on,  and  begat  a  longing  to  know  something  of  the 
author's  personality. 

I  met  Mr.  Kierolf  again  at  dinner  in  the  evening  and  said  to 
him  that  I  had  spent  the  day  with  his  friend  Swedenborg,  but 
that  the  value  of  what  I  had  read  depended  so  largely  upon  the 
tenor  of  his  life  and  the  character  he  had  borne  in  the  flesh  that 
I  felt  as  though,  before  spending  any  more  time  upon  his 
works,  I  would  like  to  be  enlightened  on  these  points.  Mr. 
Kierolf  therefore  ran  over  the  prominent  events  of  Sweden 
borg  's  life  in  a  rather  enthusiastic  strain,  and  wound  up  by 
assuring  me  that  no  other  man  in  history  could  be  named  who 
had  succeeded  more  completely  in  delivering  himself  from  the 
sway  of  the  world,  the  flesh  and  the  devil ;  and  he  was  fortu 
nately  able  to  supply  me  from  his  luggage  a  collection  of  docu 
ments  relating  to  Swedenborg  compiled  by  Professor  Bush, 
formerly  a  professor  of  Oriental  literature  at  the  University 
of  New  York,  with  whom  I  was  not  only  personally  acquainted, 
but  for  whom  both  as  a  scholar  and  a  man  I  had  the  prof ound- 
est  respect.  The  book  was  entitled  "  Documents  Concerning 
Swedenborg, ' '  and  consisted  chiefly  of  letters  and  publications 
of  Swedenborg 's  contemporaries  showing  the  estimate,  and 
reasons  for  the  estimate,  in  which  he  was  held  by  them.  I  read 
the  book  at  a  sitting,  and  laid  it  down  with  mingled  surprise 
and  mortification  that  I  had  lived  till  then  in  such  dense 
ignorance  of  the  career  and  work  of  so  remarkable  a  man,  at 
once  so  great  and  so  good  as  Swedenborg  was  there  shown  to 
be,  while  I  had  spent  so  much  of  my  life  in  trying  to  make 
myself  familiar  with  the  lives  of  men  unworthy  to  unloose  the 
latchets  of  his  shoes.  Whatever  doubts  I  had  entertained  of 
Swedenborg 's  good  faith  and  sincerity  this  book  effectually 
dispelled.  He  might  have  been  subject  to  illusions,  but  I  had 
no  longer  any  suspicions  of  his  being  an  impostor.  These  con 
victions  naturally  increased  my  curiosity  to  know  more  of  his 


A.D.  1811  Charles  Sumner  A.D.  1874 

Successor  to  Daniel  Webster  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States 


LAND  AT  NEW  ORLEANS  159 

writings,  and  especially  of  his  theology,  though  still  my  cu 
riosity  was  all  of  a  purely  intellectual  origin  and  character. 

I  asked  Mr.  Kierolf,  who  joined  with  me  in  employing  a 
schooner  to  convey  us  to  New  Orleans,  to  take  with  him  what 
ever  books  he  had  about  Swedenborg,  that  I  might  acquaint 
myself  with  them  on  our  voyage,  for  which  we  had  made  final 
arrangements.    More  than  twenty  days  elapsed  between  the 
time  of  our  departure  from  St.  Thomas  and  my  arrival  at  New 
York.    I  do  not  recollect  but  one  day  in  all  that  interval  that  I 
did  not  pore  from  ten  to  twelve  hours  over  those  writings.    It 
would  not  be  possible  to  convey  to  any  one  who  had  not  had  a 
similar  experience,  the  effect  they  produced  upon  me,  the 
almost  insane  appetite  with  which  I  devoured  them,  the  com 
plete  revolution  they  wrought  in  all  my  opinions  about  spir 
itual  matters,  and  especially  about  the  teachings  of  the  Bible. 
Though,  like  the  blind  man  in  the  gospel,  I  as  yet  saw  only  men 
as  trees  walking,  before  I  reached  home  I  had  acquired  a 
thorough  conviction  that  what  I  had  been  reading  were  not  the 
words  of  him  that  hath  a  devil,  and  that  Swedenborg  was  l '  a 
scribe  instructed  unto  the  kingdom  of  heaven. ' '    It  seemed  to 
me  that  every  line  I  read  removed  some  difficulty,  cleared  up 
some  doubt,  illuminated  some  mystery,  revealed  some  new 
spiritual  wealth  in  the  Word  of  which  before  I  had  no  concep 
tion.    I  felt  that  my  eyes  had  been  opened  to  a  world  of  which 
till  then  I  had  seen  only  the  reflection  or  shadow.     Before 
reaching  New  Orleans  I  found  myself  on  my  knees,  exclaiming, 
' '  Lord,  I  believe ;  help  Thou  my  unbelief ! ' ' 

Nearly  fifty  years  have  elapsed  since  that  voyage,  and  every 
year  has  given  me  a  new  sense  of  my  obligations  to  Sweden 
borg  for  the  Bible  that  was  lost  and  is  found,  and  of  the  special 
Providence  that  in  such  a  mysterious  way  introduced  me  to  the 
acquaintance  of  Mr.  Kierolf.1 

During  my  lifetime  I  think  I  am  warranted  in  saying  that 
the  changes  wrought  in  the  theology  of  the  Christian  world 
distinctly  attributable,  under  Providence,  to  the  teachings  of 
Swedenborg  are  more  important  than  those  wrought  in  all  the 
ten  centuries  immediately  preceding  his  birth. 

I 1  have  written  a  somewhat  more  detailed  account  of  this  experience  with 
Mr.  Kierolf  for  my  children,  and  printed  it  in  a  book  entitled  "The  Bible 
That  Was  Lost  and  Is  Found,  That  Was  Dead  and  Is  Alive  Again."    It 
may  some  day  be  worth  publishing. 


VII 

INTENSIVE  FERMENTATION  OF  SECTIONAL  TEOUBLE  AT 
WASHINGTON 


SUMNEB  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  17th  June,  '54. 
Dear  Bigelow, 

YOU  seem  to  forget  that  Douglas's  resolution,  directing 
our  Committee  for  F.  Affairs  to  consider  the  expe 
diency  of  acknowledging  the  independence  of  Dominica, 
lies  on  the  table— not  yet  acted  upon  &  ready  to  be  called  up 
any  morning.    For  a  fortnight  I  have  not  been  out  of  my  seat 
for  a  moment  during  the  morning  hour,  fearing  that  the  reso 
lution  might  be  sprung  upon  us.    Should  it  come  up  I  propose 
to  move  an  amendment  by  adding  i  t  and  Hay ti. ' ' 
Where  are  yr  letters  on  Hayti?    They  move  slowly.1 
I  said  nothing  at  the  time  to  which  you  refer,  for  several 
good  reasons,  one  of  which  was  Houston's  earnest  request  to 
me  to  say  nothing  but  to  leave  Douglas  to  him. 

I  learn  that  Houston  will  probably  be  in  New  York  on  July 
5th.  He  would  like  to  speak  in  the  Park. 

Ever  Yrs 

P.S.  Should  you  not  publish  [Truman]  Smith's  judgt.  vs.  the 
Fug.fitive]  Sl.[ave]  Bill?  It  is  able,  grave  &  powerful.  If 
well  sustained  by  the  press,  it  may  influence  public  opinion, 
also  other  courts. 

1  Some  letters  about  my  tour  in  the  Antilles  were  given  by  me  in  the 
columns  of  the  Evening  Post,  but  the  storm-clouds  of  slavery  were  gathering 
so  fast  in  the  South  that  writing  letters  about  Hayti  seemed  like  fiddling  while 
the  country  was  burning. 

160 


THEODORE  PAKKER  AND  FREMONT  161 

SUMNEE  TO  BIGELOW 

BOSTON,  llth  Oct.,  '55. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

I  am  grateful  for  that  article,  worthy  of  the  best  days  of  the 
Evening  Post,  which  shews  so  completely  how  small  all  other 
practical  reforms  are  at  this  moment  by  the  side  of  the  over 
throw  of  the  Slave  Oligarchy.  They  drain  the  treasury  by 
millions,  while  we  are  fighting  to  save  hundreds.  And  every 
principle  of  the  Constitution  is  bent  to  sustain  their  intolerable 
largesses,  &  to  limit  still  more  the  doles  which  we  may  obtain. 

I  trust  it  will  be  seen  at  length,  that  so  long  as  the  Oligarchy 
rules  the  Country,  we  shall  have  chiefly  rude,  vulgar  &  unprin 
cipled  men  in  power.  The  govt.  is  now  in  an  abnormal  condi 
tion.  And  our  aim  should  be  to  bring  it  back  to  the  rule  of 
Freedom,  everywhere  within  the  National  sphere,  when  men 
will  no  longer  be  ostracised  for  the  opinions  which  Washing 
ton,  Jefferson  &  Franklin  always  rejoiced  to  express.  But 
these  things  are  all  more  familiar  to  you  than  to  me. 

I  do  hope  you  will  stick ! 

Ever  Yours 


THEODOEE  PAEKEE  TO  BEAMHALL 

BOSTON,  14  June,  1856. 
MR.  BRAMHALL, 
Dear  Sir: 

I  never  heard  that  Mr.  Fremont  ever  wished  to  have  slaves.  It 
was  his  neighbors,  not  he,  whom  his  wife  persuaded  out  of  that  wick 
edness.  I  know  nothing  against  Mr.  F.  at  all  &  see  nothing  to  prevent 
my  giving  him  the  heartiest  support.  I  hope  to  see  him  the  next 
President  &  intend  to  do  my  possible  to  bring  it  about. 

Yours  truly 


162       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

THEODOEE  PARKER  TO  BRAMHALL 

BOSTON,  25  June,  1856. 
MR.  BRAMHALL, 
Dear  Sir: 

Your  first  note  seemed  to  require  an  immediate  answer,  so  I 
stepped  into  a  Counting  Room  near  the  P.  O.  &  answered  it— while 
persons  were  continually  talking  to  me.  But  I  wrote  what  I  thought— 
tho '  the  form  of  it  be  awkward  the  substance  is  as  it  should  be.  Make 
any  use  of  it  you  like.  I  shall  do  all  I  can  to  secure  F's  election— & 
look  upon  this  as  the  last  chance  for  a  peaceable  solution  of  the  quarrel. 
If  F.  is  not  elected— then  I  see  nothing  but  to  fight.  Yet  I  am  san 
guine  that  he  will  be  chosen— then  I  hope  to  have  a  little  leisure  for 
my  own  studies. 

Yours  truly 


JEFFERSON  DAVIS  TO  N.  P.  BANKS 

.WAR  DEPT.,  Aug.  8,  1856. 
HON.  N.  P.  BANKS, 

Speaker  of  the  H.  of  R. 
Sir, 

In  reply  to  the  enquiry  contained  in  your  note  of  this  morning, 
I  have  the  honor  to  inform  you  that  I  know  of  no  such  Report  as  that 
to  which  you  refer  in  which  Genl.  Scott  recommends  John  C.  Fremont 
for  the  brevet  of  Captain.  In  June  1844  Genl.  Scott  submitted  to  the 
Secretary  of  War  a  list  of  35  officers  of  the  Army  proposed  for  brevet 
promotion.  Among  the  number  2d  Lt.  John  C.  Fremont  is  recom 
mended  for  the  brevet  of  1st  Lieutenant  for  highly  distinguished 
services  in  the  cause  of  science,  &c.  This  list  was  not  confirmed  by  the 
Senate  and  was  withdrawn  by  President  Tyler  in  Fillmore's  time,  1845. 
In  the  meantime  the  President  must  have  nominated  Lt.  Fremont  for 
the  brevet  of  Captain— though  there  is  nothing  on  the  records  of  the 
Department  to  show  this  but  the  resolution  of  the  Senate  (of  Jan.  27. 
'45)  confirming  it. 

Very  respectfully 

Your  obt.  Servant 


ACQUIRE  A  RURAL  H.OME  163 

My  impatience  for  a  country  residence  was  aggravated  in 
1856  by  the  serious  illness  of  my  son  Poultney,  then  an  infant 
in  arms.  I  had  almost  despaired  of  his  recovery  when  I  was 
invited  by  Mr.  James  J.  Van  Alen  to  visit  him  with  my  wife 
and  children  at  a  country  place  he  had  recently  purchased  for 
himself  at  New  Hamburg.  Within  twelve  hours  after  reaching 
there,  all  my  son's  unfavorable  symptoms  disappeared,  and  at 
the  expiration  of  a  week  we  left  with  his  health  completely 
restored. 

On  my  way  to  the  city,  at  Garrisons,  the  late  Mr.  Alfred  Pell 
came  into  the  cars  and  took  a  seat  by  my  side.  I  told  him  what 
I  had  been  doing,  and  that  I  felt  tempted  to  purchase  a  home 
at  New  Hamburg ;  that  I  had  looked  in  every  direction  within 
fifty  miles  of  New  York,  and  had  been  able  to  find  no  place 
where  the  change  of  air  was  sufficient  to  compensate  for  the 
privation  of  the  privileges  and  comforts  of  the  city.  He  said : 
'  *  That  is  true.  I  reached  that  conclusion  some  time  ago.  Now, 
I  know  exactly  a  place  for  you.  It  is  near  where  I  am  build 
ing,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river,  at  Buttermilk  Falls,  ad 
joining  West  Point. "  He  told  me  of  all  the  advantages  of  the 
scenery,  air,  climate,  vicinage,  etc.,  and  then  proposed  that  I 
should  come  up  with  him  the  following  Friday  night,  spend 
Saturday  and  Sunday  with  him,  and  see  the  place,  which  I 
promised  to  do. 

Saturday  morning  we  walked  up  to  the  place  he  recom 
mended.  I  was  charmed  with  it,  bought  it  before  I  left,  and, 
according  to  the  country  fashion,  handed  the  owner  a  dollar  to 
bind  the  bargain.  In  the  course  of  that  year  I  managed  to  rig 
up  a  tenement  that  I  thought  would  answer  our  purpose  tem 
porarily,  to  which  I  have  since  made  four  or  five  successive 
additions,  and  in  which  I  have  resided  every  summer  since.  I 
was  fortunately  able  to  sell  my  house  in  town  about  the  same 
time  for  a  sufficient  advance  to  pay  all  it  had  cost  me  in  inter 
est,  for  I  had  paid  little  if  any  on  the  principal ;  so  that,  thanks 
to  Mr.  Field's  advice,  for  those  five  years  I  lived  practically 
rent-free. 

On  the  22d  of  May,  1856,  Senator  Sunmer  was  assaulted  and 
brutally  beaten  with  a  cane,  while  engaged  in  writing  in  his 
chair  in  the  Senate,  which  had  shortly  before  adjourned,  by 
Preston  S.  Brooks,  a  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives 


164       KETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

from  South  Carolina  and  a  kinsman  of  Senator  Butler  of  the 
same  State.  The  impression  which  this  outrage  left  upon  the 
public  mind,  and  its  contribution  to  the  inflammatory  elements 
of  the  period,  have  been  fully  set  forth  by  Mr.  Pierce  in  his 
very  careful  and  elaborate  biography  of  Mr.  Sumner. 

Mr.  Burlingame,  a  member  of  the  House  of  Kepresenta- 
tives  from  Massachusetts,  on  the  20th  of  June  following  the 
assault,  took  occasion  to  characterize  the  act  of  Brooks  very 
justly,  but  in  language  scarcely  less  parliamentary  than  the 
action  he  rebuked.  A  challenge  followed,  and  was  accepted  by 
Mr.  Burlingame,  and  the  place  selected  for  the  duel  was 
Niagara  Falls  on  the  Canada  side.  On  his  way  from  Wash 
ington  to  the  proposed  place  of  meeting,  Mr.  Burlingame  spent 
the  night  at  the  Astor  House,  where  I  was  invited  with  two  or 
three  other  gentlemen  to  meet  him  in  the  evening.  It  was 
there  that  he  learned  that  Brooks  had  declined  to  follow  him  so 
far  from  Washington  and  so  far  from  his  friends.  It  was  the 
first  time  I  had  seen  Mr.  Burlingame.  I  found  a  young-look 
ing  man  for  the  rank  he  had  already  taken  as  a  speaker  in  Con 
gress.  He  was  a  very  prepossessing  person  and  with  what 
seemed  to  me  a  very  becoming  sense  of  the  solemnity  and  mag 
nitude  of  the  cause  which  circumstances  had  so  unexpectedly 
called  him  to  represent. 

As  Sumner 's  was  the  first  blood  that  was  shed  in  the  Civil 
War,  and  Brooks  the  ruffian  who  shed  it,  and  as  the  attempt  to 
assassinate  Sumner  and  the  successful  assassination  of  Lin 
coln  were  the  two  events  which  contributed  perhaps  more  than 
any  other  to  extinguish  all  sympathy  in  the  free  States  for 
the  slaveholders,  I  esteem  it  a  piece  of  great  good  fortune  that 
Colonel  James,  who  was  the  second  of  Mr.  Burlingame,  left 
among  his  papers  a  detailed  account  of  the  affair  from  the  day 
after  Burlingame 's  denunciation  of  Brooks  to  the  refusal  of 
Brooks  to  follow  him  to  the  field  of  honor  to  which  he  had 
challenged  him.  It  was  given  to  the  Washington  Post  a  short 
time  after  Colonel  James's  death  by  one  of  his  oldest  and  most 
intimate  friends,  W.  A.  Croffut.  As  this  record  has  probably 
been  seen  by  very  few  outside  of  Washington,  and  as  the  event 
of  which  it  gives  such  a  graphic  account  from  the  best  possible 
witnesses  is  certainly  a  very  important  link  in  the  chain  of 
events  which  led  to  the  Civil  War  of  1861-65, 1  will  insert  it  here. 

It  may  be  proper  to  premise  that  I  became  acquainted  with 


ASSAULT  UPON  SUMNER  IN  THE  SENATE      165 

Colonel  James  in  the  Fremont  campaign  of  1856  and  had  pre 
served  very  agreeable  relations  with  him  to  the  time  of  his 
death.  He  was  selected  by  Secretary  Chase,  when  Mr.  Lincoln 
came  to  the  Presidency,  for  Collector  at  San  Francisco.  He 
was  a  born  orator  and  full  of  resources.  Of  the  Brooks  chal 
lenge  Colonel  James  said,  as  reported  in  the  Washington  Post 
of  October  27, 1901 : 

"I  arrived  in  Washington  one  morning  from  New  York  and  read 
in  the  National  Intelligencer  the  card  of  Anson  Burlingame,  Congress 
man  from  Massachusetts,  in  relation  to  the  attitude  of  Preston  S. 
Brooks  (' Bully  Brooks'),  Congressman  from  South  Carolina.  Mr. 
Brooks  had  beaten  Mr.  Sumner  over  the  head  with  his  club,  and  no  one 
had  interposed  to  take  a  hand  in  the  quarrel. 

"Believing  that  Burlingame 's  card  would  bring  about  a  hostile 
meeting,  I  immediately  went  out  to  look  for  him.  We  met  on  the 
Avenue  at  the  corner  of  the  National  Hotel.  His  first  question  was, 
'Have  you  seen  my  card?' 

"'I  have.' 

"  'What  do  you  think  of  it?' 

"  'I  think  it  will  bring  you  a  challenge  before  ten  o'clock.' 

"  'What  would  you  do?' 

"  'Every  man  situated  as  you  are  must  decide  that  for  himself.' 

"  'Well,  James,  I  intend  to  fight.  I  'd  rather  die  ten  thousand 
deaths  than  suffer  what  I  have  during  the  attempted  adjustment  of 
this  affair.' 

"Burlingame  was  a  very  vigorous  and  impressive  speaker— an  actor 
even  in  conversation.  He  spoke  now  with  great  emphasis.  He  had 
said  in  the  House,  of  Brooks:  'He  stole  into  the  Senate  and  smote 
him  as  Cain  smote  his  brother. '  As  he  now  said  that  he  meant  to  fight, 
I  said :  'Your  mind  is  made  up.  Then  I  think  you  are  entirely  right.' 

"  '  I  want  you  for  my  second, '  said  Burlingame. 

"  'That  you  cannot  have.' 

"  'Why  not?' 

"  'Because,  in  the  first  place,  I  know  nothing  practically  of  the 
code.  In  the  second  place,  he  will  have  some  famous  Senator  or  Rep 
resentative,  or,  perhaps,  two  of  them,  for  his  seconds,  and  they  would 
so  far  outrank  me  as  to  put  me  at  another  disadvantage.  You  must 
get  a  Congressman  or  a  Senator.' 

"  'Are  you  going  to  desert  me  now?' 

"  'Not  if  you  put  it  in  that  way,'  I  replied. 

"  'That  is  the  way  I  feel  compelled  to  put  it.' 

"  'Then  you  can  depend  on  me  for  the  best  that  is  in  me.'' 

"  'That  's  more  like  you.     I  am  satisfied.' 


166       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

"  After  some  further  conversation,  we  separated,  each  to  go  to  his 
hotel.  I  found  mine  alive  with  excitement.  The  first  question  of 
nearly  every  Southerner  was :  '  Will  Burlingame  fight  ? ' 

"At  breakfast,  Humphrey  Marshall,  a  fat  member  from  Kentucky, 
and  a  duellist  himself,  sometimes  urbane,  but  often  rancorous  to  the 
verge  of  personal  encroachment,  was  particularly  inquisitive.  I  told 
him  that  at  last  I  thought  they  had  found  a  Yankee  who  at  least  would 
not  run.  The  cool  manner  of  the  announcement  seemed  to  startle  him, 
and  he  expressed  regrets  at  the  situation. 

"Shortly  afterward  I  met  the  Hon.  Francis  P.  Blair  on  the  Ave 
nue.  He  had  driven  in  from  Silver  Spring  in  a  country  wagon  and 
invited  me  to  a  seat  beside  him.  As  we  drove  along  the  Avenue  he 
said  it  looked  as  if  there  would  be  a  duel,  and  that  from  my  intimacy 
he  thought  I  would  know  of  it,  and  he  desired  to  give  me  some  hints 
and  cautions  in  regard  to  the  course  to  be  pursued.  It  would  not  do, 
he  said,  to  have  the  meeting  come  off  within  the  District,  because 
Brooks  would  be  surrounded  and  supported  by  friends,  while  the  New 
Englanders  would  probably  shrink  away  from  Burlingame.  That, 
he  said,  was  the  case  in  the  Cilley-Graves  duel,  and  he  believed  it  was 
the  cause  of  Cilley  being  killed.  He  thereupon  extracted  from  me  a 
promise  that  if  I  had  anything  to  do  with  the  affair  it  should  occur 
outside  of  the  District. 

"Leaving  Blair,  I  hurried  to  the  Capitol,  and  at  the  door  of  the 
House  met  Mr.  Eustis,  a  young  member  from  Louisiana.  The  diffi 
culty  between  Brooks  and  Burlingame  was  the  theme  of  every  tongue, 
and  the  excitement  was  intense.  Mr.  Eustis,  after  saluting  me,  asked 
earnestly:  'Will  Burlingame  fight?'  I  replied  that  I  thought  he 
would,  but  made  no  further  disclosure. 

"He  responded:  'He  ought  to,  for  it  is  not  every  day  a  man  has 
the  opportunity  to  fight  for  a  whole  section  as  Burlingame  has  now/ 
He  continued  that  the  whole  difficulty  had  been  brought  on  by  Douglas 
inserting  in  his  bill  admitting  Kansas  and  Nebraska  the  clause  which 
repealed  the  Missouri  Compromise.  I  assented  to  that. 

"At  that  moment  Douglas  came  up,  and  said:  'Good  morning, 
gentlemen.'  We  returned  his  salute,  and  Eustis  said: 

"  'Judge,  we  were  just  talking  about  you.' 

' '  Whereupon  Douglas  replied :  '  I  want  no  better  commenders  than 
you  and  James.' 

' '  '  But, '  said  Eustis,  '  we  were  condemning  you. ' 

"  'Well,'  Douglas  retorted,  'when  the  devil  has  work  on  hand  I  know 
of  no  more  apt  ministers  that  he  could  call  upon.' 

"The  good-natured  badinage  would  no  doubt  have  continued  had 
not  Burlingame  at  that  moment  touched  me  on  the  shoulder,  and 
taking  me  one  side  said  he  had  received  a  challenge. 


THE  BURLINGAME-BROOKS  CHALLENGE      167 

"When  Burlingame  told  me  he  had  received  a  challenge  I  asked 
him  what  General  Lane  said  when  Brooks  handed  it  to  him.  Lane 
said  that  Brooks  praised  Burlingame 's  courage,  and  then  he  added 
that  he  was  in  a  state  of  frightful  excitement,  and  desired  that  the 
meeting  should  come  off  as  soon  as  possible  that  he  might  be  relieved 
of  it.  This  somewhat  incensed  me,  and  I  replied  that  if  Brooks  was  in 
that  state  he  had  better  send  for  a  doctor.  I  then  told  Burlingame 
that  I  had  about  as  lief  see  him  shot  as  arrested,  for  the  authorities 
were  all  against  us,  and  would,  if  possible,  turn  it  to  his  discredit, 
and  that  he  had  better  go  at  once  to  his  hotel,  pack  his  trunk,  and 
await  me  at  a  certain  place  in  the  Smithsonian  grounds,  which  I 
designated.  I  then  went  in  search  of  another  second. 

"My  first  application  was  to  General  Sam  Houston,  whose  career 
is  known  to  most  Americans,  who  was  then  a  Senator  from  Texas. 
When  I  made  known  to  him  what  I  wanted,  he  replied,  in  his  bland 
way,  'Oh,  see  here!  I  can't  do  it.  I  'm  a  member  of  the  Baptist 
Church.  But  if  Mr.  Burlingame  will  come  to  me  I  11  give  him 
advice  that  will  be  worth  a  million  to  him.'  He  rolled  out  the  word 
'million'  as  if  he  were  Sisyphus  with  his  shoulder  to  the  stone. 

"I  replied  to  him  that  events  were  too  urgent  to  wait  for  much 
advice,  and,  requesting  him  to  keep  secret  what  had  occurred  between 
us,  I  sought  Ben  Wade,  Senator  from  Ohio. 

*  *  Mr.  Wade  took  an  hour  to  consider  my  request,  and  then  declined, 
saying  that  he  would  fight  a  duel,  but  would  not  take  the  responsibility 
of  acting  as  a  second. 

' '  Burlingame  afterward  said  that  he  was  present  at  this  interview ; 
and  he  may  have  been  present  at  its  opening,  but  he  could  hardly  have 
been  there  at  its  termination,  for  I  had  hurried  him  off  to  make  prepa 
rations  for  his  secret  departure,  made  necessary  by  the  hostile  attitude 
of  the  authorities,  which  were  friendly  to  Brooks.  On  getting  Wade 's 
final  answer,  I  went  at  once  to  Louis  D.  Campbell,  member  from  Ohio, 
of  whom  I  was  sure.  He  responded  at  once,  'I  will  go;  I  have  been 
trying  to  get  a  fight  out  of  them  for  a  month.'  By  'them'  he  meant 
the  party  bent  on  extending  slavery. 

"As  soon  as  he  could  get  ready  we  repaired  to  the  rendezvous  and 
found  Burlingame  there.  The  afternoon  was  now  more  than  half 
spent.  I  at  once  informed  them  of  what  Blair  had  said  to  me  and  that 
I  had  promised  him  the  meeting  should  not  take  place  in  the  District. 
This  was  at  once  accepted  as  final,  and  various  places  were  discussed, 
some  in  adjoining  States,  ranging  from  the  Bermudas  to  Cuba.  At 
length  Campbell  says: 

"  'Why  not  Niagara  Falls  on  the  Canadian  side?' 

"After  some  consideration  this  was  accepted.  It  was  now  evening, 
and  we  could  see  groups  gathering  on  the  Avenue  and  knew  they  were 


168       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

discussing  the  situation.  I  left  to  engage  a  carriage  and  to  inform 
Banks,  from  whose  house  we  had  decided  to  depart,  of  what  had 
occurred,  leaving  them  to  make  their  way  separately,  each  in  his  own 
way,  to  Campbell 's  room  on  the  other  side  the  Avenue,  where  we  were 
to  meet  again.  On  informing  Banks  that  a  fight  was  in  prospect,  he 
exclaimed : 

"  'Good,  by  God!     It  's  time  there  was  a  fight !' 

1 '  I  told  him  as  soon  as  the  affair  was  quite  arranged  we  would  be  at 
his  house,  and  he  said  he  would  be  ready  for  us.  I  had  engaged  a  car 
riage  at  Willard  's,  telling  the  driver  I  would  pay  him  double  if  he  kept 
it  a  secret.  While  there  Captain  Marryat— I  think  that  was  his  name 
—came  hurriedly  to  me  and  said:  'There  's  going  to  be  a  duel,  is  n't 
there?'  I  answered:  'It  looks  so.' 

"  'And  if  it  comes  off,'  he  says,  'it  is  likely  to  be  a  bloody  one?' 

"  'It  looks  as  if  it  might.' 

"Whereupon  he  flew  away,  exclaiming,  'Damn  indiscreet  friends.' 
He  had  been  in  the  Mexican  War  and  was  remarkable  for  his  youth 
ful  looks  and  graceful  demeanor.  I  never  saw  him  afterward. 

"From  Banks 's  I  went  to  Campbell's  room.  He  and  Burlingame 
were  in  waiting.  We  prepared  the  acceptance  of  the  challenge,  and 
Campbell  went  to  deliver  it.  He  was  gone  so  long  that  he  tired  us  out 
with  waiting.  When  he  returned  he  gave  as  a  reason  that  he  found 
Brooks  in  his  room,  surrounded  by  friends  that  packed  it,  smoking 
and  drinking,  and  delayed  delivering  his  message  until  they  appar 
ently  took  the  hint  and  left.  He  then  handed  Brooks  the  acceptance, 
which  designated  the  time  and  place  of  meeting  only,  leaving  the  other 
preliminaries  to  be  arranged.  He  said  that  Brooks  expressed  his 
satisfaction,  spoke  highly  of  Burlingame,  and  gave  not  the  slightest 
hint  at  dissent  from  anything  that  had  been  done. 

"We  then  arranged  a  cipher  telegraph  code  to  communicate  with 
Campbell,  who  was  to  remain,  and  we  left  for  Banks 's  house,  near  the 
corner  of  K  and  Fourteenth.  He  had  refreshments  ready  for  us, 
wine,  etc.,  which  we  partook  of  with  a  relish,  for  we  had  had  nothing 
since  breakfast,  and  we  talked  over  the  matter  while  waiting  for  the 
carriage.  It  arrived  before  twelve  o  'clock,  and  Burlingame  and  I  left 
together  for  New  York. 

"We  reached  the  cars  at  a  station  beyond  Bladensburg  without 
recognition.  At  Baltimore  or  Wilmington  I  wired  Captain  Bob 
Ritchie,  who  was  or  had  been  in  the  navy  and  was  up  in  duels,  to  meet 
me  in  the  depot  at  Philadelphia.  He  was  on  hand  when  we  arrived. 
I  told  him  what  we  had  done  and  asked  if  so  far  we  had  proceeded 
correctly.  He  said  we  had,  and  continued,  giving  us  considerable 
advice  as  to  what  to  do  when  we  arrived  at  the  place  of  meeting.  From 
here  we  went  on  to  New  York. 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  THE  DUEL        169 

"Once  on  the  way  again,  Burlingame  said  he  would  like  to  tele 
graph  his  father-in-law  and  let  him  know  where  he  was,  and  also 
remarked  that  if  the  duel  came  off  he  would  prefer  to  shoot  Brooks 
in  the  leg. 

"I  protested  against  both  of  these  suggestions,  telling  him  the  eyes 
of  the  whole  nation  were  looking  with  interest  to  see  what  would  occur, 
and  that  we  must  not  try  to  see  friends  or  relatives,  but  must  keep 
absolute  control  of  the  management.  This  seemed  to  satisfy  him,  and 
I  tried  to  kill  time  by  amusing  him  with  all  the  ridiculous  accounts 
of  duels  that  I  had  ever  heard. 

"On  the  way  we  kept  by  ourselves,  and,  singularly  enough,  met 
no  one  on  the  cars  that  we  knew  during  the  whole  journey.  On  arriv 
ing  at  New  York  we  went  to  the  Everett  House,  registered  under  fic 
titious  names,  and  ordered  dinner  in  our  parlor.  The  papers  came  in, 
and  we  learned  from  them  that  Brooks  had  been  arrested  in  Washing 
ton,  and  discharged  on  giving  bail.  I  told  Burlingame  it  would  not  in 
the  least  alter  the  situation,  for  the  cock  that  crows  and  won 't  fight  is 
despised  even  by  the  pullets,  and  he  will  surely  be  on  hand.  When 
it  was  quite  dark  we  went  to  a  shooting-gallery  on  Broadway,  and 
Burlingame 's  target  practice  was  marvelous.  He  was  cool  as  a  cu 
cumber  and  hit  the  bull's-eye  with  great  frequency. 

' '  In  the  morning  we  learned  from  the  papers  that  Brooks  would  not 
fight,  objecting,  without  any  further  attempt  at  negotiation,  the  dis 
tance  and  danger  of  going  through  the  North.  All  cause  for  further 
secrecy  was  at  an  end,  and  when  it  was  known  that  we  were  in  the 
city,  we  were  taken  to  the  Astor  House  and  given  a  great  banquet, 
with  much  parade,  where  several  famous  public  men  made  speeches 
and  eulogized  Mr.  Burlingame. 

1 1 1  was  called  in  another  direction,  and  did  not  return  with  Burlin 
game  to  Washington,  but  before  leaving  him,  I  strongly  advised  him 
to  answer  Brooks 's  querulous  objection  in  the  spirit  which  Shake 
speare  makes  Norfolk  adopt  in  his  answer  to  Bolingbroke  when  clear 
ing  his  honor  from  what  he  declared  to  be  a  false  charge  : 

And  meet  him,  were  I  tied,  to  run  afoot 
Even  to  the  frozen  ridges  of  the  Alps, 
Or  any  other  ground  inhabitable, 
Wherever  Englishman  durst  set  his  foot. 

And  it  must  be  conceded  that  he  answered  in  this  spirit. " 

It  will  be  seen  that  nobody  except  Burlingame  himself  was  so  well 
qualified  to  give  the  complete  story  of  his  side  of  this  affair  as  was 
Colonel  James.  He  was  with  him  every  hour  from  first  to  last,  and 
he  was  evidently  Mr.  Burlingame 's  chief  support  and  adviser. 
Henry  Wilson  has  given  a  fragmentary  and  imperfect  account  of  it, 


170       EETEOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

but  he  was'  deliberately  excluded  from  all  knowledge  of  it  except  that 
which  the  general  public  possessed;  in  fact,  it  was  his  conduct  that 
brought  Burlingame  into  the  threatened  collision.  Wilson  had  de 
nounced  Brooks  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  saying  that  he  would  answer 
for  it  there  or  elsewhere,  but  when  called  to  account,  had  replied  that 
he  would  not  fight  a  duel,  but  would  defend  himself  if  attacked.  This 
greatly  disgusted  Burlingame,  and  Banks,  when  it  was  reported  to 
him,  retorted  with  severe  irony,  "A  rat  will  do  that!"  These  were 
times  of  wild  excitement.  The  Rebellion  was  coming  to  a  head.  The 
rupture  between  the  sections  was  nearly  in  sight,  and  this  incident 
was  called  by;  some  the  first  gun  of  the  Civil  War. 

[W.  A.  CROFFUT. 


J.  VAN  BUEEN  TO  BIGELOW, 

My  dear  Bigeloiv, 

Assuming  that  you  look  on  the  Native  American  spirit  as 
Democrats  generally  do  &  have,  it  seems  to  me  a  moderate 
editorial  in  the  Post  against  it  would  aid  the  Dem.  party,  &  be 
of  essential  service  to  the  Post.  The  True  National  Democrat, 
I  fear,  has  been  bit  by  the  Know- No  things,  but  I  would  not 
allude  to  it.  The  Union,  on  the  other  hand,  strongly  denounces 
the  Know-Nothings.  Perhaps  this  may  drive  you  off,  but  I  am 
confident  the  South  will  seize  the  Nat.  Am.  movement  to  for 
tify  itself  in  Nebraska  &  Kansas.  I  think  the  Union  will  cave 
in.  This  may  console  you.  I  would  ask  the  Atlas  to  do  this, 
but  Cassidy  being  Irish,  it  would  come  better  from  you.  The 
Post  can  reiterate  its  own  views  mildly  but  firmly. 

June  13th,  1856. 


When  Mr.  Douglas,  after  his  report  against  the  Nebraska 
Bill,  had  been  persuaded  to  give  it  his  support,  its  friends  sup 
posed  they  were  strong  enough  to  pass  it  without  the  Presi 
dent's  influence.  This  was  a  part  of  their  plan  to  head  off  his 
power  in  the  South.  But  some  unforeseen  difficulties  arising, 
among  others  that  of  bringing  Southern  Whigs  into  the 
measure,  they  concluded  it  was  not  safe  to  risk  it  without 


DOUGLAS'S  TRICK  UPON  PRESIDENT  PIErRCE    171 

executive  patronage  and  favor.  It  was  not  difficult  to  obtain 
the  verbal  assent  of  the  President,  who,  by  his  inaugural  and 
his  first  message,  as  well  as  by  the  Union,  to  which  he  himself 
was  a  contributor,  had  been  at  first  strongly  opposed  to  its 
introduction,  denouncing,  it  as  an  equivalent  of  the  abolition*- 
ism  of  Senator  Sumner;  but  the  friends  of  the  bill  desired 
something  more  than  this.  They  desired  the  President's  con 
sent  in  writing.  To  obtain  this  some  care  was  necessary.  Mr. 
Douglas  therefore,  on  a  certain  Sunday  evening,  calling  upon 
the  President,  naturally  led  the  conversation  to  the  subject  of 
the  great  measure,  in  the  course  of  which  the  President,  by  an 
indirection  not  difficult  for  so  skilful  a  man  as  Mr.  Douglas-, 
was  led  to  suggest  some  slight  amendments,  which  he  thought 
would  greatly  facilitate  its  passage.  While  this  was  going  on, 
Mr.  Atchison  accidentally  came  in.  The  President  was  re 
quested  to  repeat  his  propositions,  and— Mr.  Atchison  at  once 
giving  his  approval— to  make  them  more  clear,  in  connection 
with  the  context,  by  inserting  the  alterations  in  the  bill  itself. 
The  President,  highly  gratified  in  being  able  to  relieve  such 
experienced  statesmen  as  Messrs.  Douglas  and  Atchison,  in  so 
important  a  measure  as  the  Nebraska  and  Kansas  Bill,  from 
the  difficulties  which  surrounded  it,  in  the  most  obliging  man 
ner  immediately  complied  with  their  request,  and  Mr.  Douglas, 
taking  the  bill  with  the  President's  interlineations,  quietly 
folded  it  up  and  placed  it  where  Hamlet's  uncle  put  the  crown 
of  Denmark,  "in  his  pocket."  This  was  the  President's  com 
mittal  "in  writing,"  which  fact  was  everywhere  proclaimed 
on  Monday  by  Mr.  Douglas's  friends,  who  were  unwilling, 
from  some  events  which  had  transpired  in  relation  to  the  sub 
ject  of  harbor  improvements  and  tonnage  duties,  to  assume 
his  consent  and  support  expressed  in  any  less  definite  manner. 
Perhaps  Mr.  Douglas  will  publicly  state,  if  this  be  not  so,  that 
he  has  never  had  or  seen  a  copy  of  the  celebrated  Nebraska 
and  Kansas  Bill,  interlined  in  the  President's  own  handwrit 
ing.  But  certainly  Mr.  Marcy's  friends  will  have  no  further 
difficulty,  in  the  absence  of  Mr.  Douglas's  denial,  in  receiving 
Mr.  Marcy's  apology  for  allowing  the  Administration  to  com 
mit  so  irreparable  a  blunder  ' i  that  before  any  member  of  the 
Cabinet  'had  heard  it  proposed  as  a  measure  of  the  Govern 
ment,  the  President  had  committed  himself  to  its  support  in 
writing.9' 


172       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

SUMNER  TO  BIGELOW 

ALLEGHANY  MTS.,  PENN.,  18th  Aug.,  '56. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

The  mountain  air  &  idleness  are  doing  the  business  for  me. 
My  physical  condition  is  improving  daily,  so  that  I  have 
seemed  to  be  able  to  leave.  But  my  physician  is  most  urgent 
in  his  injunction  to  stay,  &  says  that  I  cannot  leave  without 
danger  of  a  relapse.  Unless  something  untoward  should  oc 
cur,  I  shall  expect  to  bear  my  part  very  soon  in  the  Campaign 
of  Freedom— the  great  Campaign  of  Liberation,  which  is  now 
commencing. 

You  must  be  more  than  satisfied  with  Thayer.  As  a  corre 
spondent,  he  is  most'  efficient.  It  was  remarked  by  my  clerk  at 
Washington  that  for  weeks  he  was  the  only  person  whose 
presence  could  draw  me  into  anything  like  gaiety.  I  feel  truly 
attached  to  him. 

Eemember  me  to  Mr.  Bryant. 

Ever  sincerely  Yours 

P.S.    We  must  succeed  in  the  coming  election. 


GEORGE  SUMNER  TO  BIGELOW 

CARE  EEVD.  DR.  FURNESS, 
PHILA.,  3  Oct.,  '56. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

I  wish  you  would  write  Charles  one  line—  (referring  to  our 
conversation  of  last  Saturday  in  regard  to  his  taking  the 
stump)  —in  wh.  you  wld  repeat  what  you  then  said  to  me. 

Charles  is  fretting  himself  to  death,  or  to  death's  door,  by 
his  anxiety  to  be  in  the  field.— At  least,  if  he  cannot  go  through 
the  whole  State,  he  must,  he  says,  make  one  rousing  speech  in 
Independence  Square  before  the  14th. 


SUMNER  FRETTING  HIMSELF  TO  DEATH      173 

Now  Ms  physician  (an  able  &  clear  headed  man)  declares 
that,  however  well  &  bright  he  might  appear  at  ye  Commence 
ment,  in  15  minutes  he  wld.  break  down,— not  to  rise  for  an 
indefinite  time,  perhaps  years. 

If  perfectly  quiet,  he  will  be  strong  &  fit  for  duty  in  Decem 
ber.  Since  he  came  from  the  Mtns.  he  has  had  a  relapse,— out 
of  7  nights  he  has  slept  only  two,— last  night  was  a  little 
better,— but  he  is  like  a  racer  chafing  to  be  off. 

I  hoped  to  see  him  at  work,  and  to  have  him  up  this  week, 
but  I  fear  all  work  must  be  given  up. — If  you  can  convince 
him  he  ought  not  to  speak,  he  would  sleep  quietly  for  a  week, 
and  thus  get  strength  enough  to  speak. 

Buchanan  complains  of  the  " deplorable  inactivity"  of  his 
friends.  There  seems  to  be  enough  activity— tho.  not  always 
wisely  directed— among  our  friends.  Think  however  of  their 
sending  their  men  to  stump  old  Dutch  Pennsylvania !— to  talk 
to  those  who  believe  only  in  fat,  sleekheaded  men  &  such  as 
sleep  o'  nights.— I  have  found  one  round  full-bellied  jovial  old 
Dutch  parson  who  begins  to-day,— and  by  the  luckiest  chance, 
Preston  King  has  just  arrived.  I  have  expounded  the  case  to 
him,  &  he  promises  to  use  his  physical  advantages  in  the  best 
manner^ to  speak  to  old  German  Democrats— and  not  waste 
his  fatness  on  the  unappreciating. 

Charles  was  much  pleased  with  Mrs.  B  's  kind  remembrance. 

Ever  yours 


SUMNEE  TO  BIGELOW 

PHILADELPHIA,  9th  Oct.,  '56, 

AT  MR.   FURNESS'S. 

My  dear  Bigelow, 

Never  did  I  expect  this  long  divorce  from  my  duties,  which 
spins  out  its  interminable  thread.  Constantly  from  week  to 
week  I  have  looked  for  restoration,  and  have  made  plans  for 
speaking.  But  at  last  I  must  give  them  all  up.  I  am  still  an 
invalid,  with  weeks,  if  not  months,  of  seclusion  still  before  me. 
All  this  has  been  made  particularly  apparent  to  me  to-day  by 
my  physician,  while  Dr.  Howe  of  Boston,  who  has  kindly  vis- 


174       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

ited  me,  has  enforced  this  judgment  by  his  authoritative 
opinion.  My  brain  and  whole  nervous  system  are  still  jangled 
and  subject  to  relapse.  My  only  chance  of  cure  is  repose. 

And  yet  in  many  respects  I  am  comfortable ;  indeed  so  well 
that  I  am  unhappy  not  to  be  better.  But  however  comfortable 
or  well  I  am  still  disabled. 

I  long  to  do  something.  The  wounded  Philoctetes  did  not 
sigh  for  companionship  with  the  Grecian  chiefs  against  Troy 
more  than  I  do  for  our  present  battle.  I  am  grateful  for  yr 
kind  thought  of  me,  and  for  your  promised  welcome  under 
your  roof.  I  do  not  expect  to  stop  in  New  York,  nor  do  I  know 
when  I  can  venture  into  Massachusetts.  With  kind  regards  to 
your  confreres,  oldest  &  youngest, 

Ever  sincerely  Yours 


SUMNEK  TO  BIGELOW 

BOSTON,  18th  Nov.,  '56. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

I  am  not  strong  enough  to  travel  comfortably,  or  I  should 
visit  New  York  at  once  to  learn  what  I  could  about  my  brother 
&  his  family.  Will  you  kindly  ask  Thayer  to  make  some  in 
quiries  for  me  at  the  French  Consulate  &  of  any  survivors  who 
may  be  accessible?  I  observe  that  there  is  a  Miss  Solomon  in 
New  York— also  sailors  at  79  Leonard  St.  &  then  there  is  the 
mate  when  he  returns. 

Perhaps  some  of  these  will  remember  something  of  my 
brother,  who  would  be  noticed  for  his  appearance  &  his  car 
riage,  &  also  of  his  wife  &  daughter.  In  what  boat  did  they 
embark,  &  how  did  they  pass  the  day  of  preparation? 

Pardon  my  freedom  with  you,  &  believe  me,  dear  Bigelow, 

Ever  sincerely  yours 

(P.S.  If  Thayer  is  not  with  you  ask  one  of  yr  reporters  to 
make  these  inquiries,  &  let  me  know  how  I  can  thank  him.)1 

1Sumner>s  brother  George  was  smitten  with  paralysis  while  in  Europe, 
where  he  had  spent  much  of  his  life.  He  was  on  his  way  home  at  the  date 
of  this  letter.  He  died  in  the  Massachusetts  General  Hospital  on  the  6th  of 
October,  1863. 


N.  P.  WILLIS  AND  "THE  SQUIRRELS''         175 

N.  P.  WILLIS  TO  MRS.  JOHN  BIGELOW 

IDLEWILD,  June  23/57. 
Dear  Mrs.  Bigelow: 

When  I  tell  you  that  your  exquisite  present,  for  my  bran  new 
boy,  arrived  at  Idlewild  only  an  hour  ago,  you  will  perhaps  begin 
to  forgive  me  for  my  apparent  neglect  as  to  acknowledging  it.  The 
fact  is  that  our  over-careful  clerk  at  the  office  put  it  into  a  box  which 
was  to  be  sent  by  freight-barge,  &  it  was  most  tardily  delivered  at 
Cornwall  dock,  where  I  chanced  to  find  it  today.  Fortunately,  the 
head  for  which  it  was  so  kindly  designed  has  been  meantime  growing 
to  fit  it,  &  there  was  a  general  scream  of  delight  when  it  was  first 
tried  on.  My  wife  wishes  to  express  her  very  most  grateful  & 
gratified  sentiments,  &  to  beg  you  to  come  &  see  how  it  looks,  on. 

I  write  this  to  you  instead  of  to  Bigelow,  because  I  could  not  lose 
the  opportunity  of  doing  so  much  pleasanter  a  thing  than  writing 
to  an  Editor— preferring  the  less  shop-y  communication  of  the  voice. 
Please  say  that  I  hope  soon  to  talk  my  answer  to  his  kind  note. 

I  do  not  much  like  "The  Squirrels,"  but  it  will  grow  to  be  classic 
very  soon.  But  is  it  altogether  fix'd  &  irreversible  ? 

My  wife  &  Master  Bailey  Willis  are  florescent,  and  we  are  all  hoping 
to  see  you  soon;  &  meantime,  dear  Mrs.  Bigelow,  believe  me 

Yours  Most  Sincerely 


PEESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

OGDENSBURGH,  Oct.  1,  1857. 
Dear  Sir: 

Yours  of  Friday  last  is  reed.  You  were  by  no  means  singu 
lar  in  your  idea  as  to  Denio.  And  wherever  I  do  not  go 
straight  along  with,  your  suggestions  I  am  in  the  habit  of  feel 
ing  it  necessary  to  the  satisfaction  of  my  own  mind  to  be  able 
to  state  a  reason,  and  so  apprehending  Denio  to  be  wrong  on 
the  question  of  the  construction  of  the  U.  S.  Constitution 
recently  invented  which  makes  the  Judiciary  a  political  agent 
to  change  the  Constitution,  I  wrote  you.  It  seems  to  me  it 
would  not  do  for  the  Eepublican  party  to  nominate  or  aid  in 


176       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

the  election  of  a  Judge  who  would  sustain  the  scheme  of  mak 
ing  judicial  decisions  accomplish  a  political  object— the  su 
premacy  of  Slavery,  which  the  popular  vote  will  never,  I  hope, 
sanction  or  sustain:  In  this  hope  I  am  sure  we  never  differed. 

Yours  truly 


Dear  Friend: 


PEESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

OGDENSBUKGH,  Oct.  17,  1857. 


I  thank  you  for  your  advice  to  give  no  encouragement  for  an 
Extra  Session  of  the  Legislature,  for  altho  in  exact  accordance 
with  my  own  opinion  one  is  strengthened  by  finding  he  agrees 
with  others.  I  am  glad  to  see  there  is  to  be  none.  I  am  heartily 
glad,  too,  to  hear  that  you  intend  to  make  the  Evening  Post 
speak  in  favor  of  Jenkins's  Election.  I  wanted  to  express  to 
you  the  wish  that  you  would.  Let  it  be  done  heartily,  he  is  a 
true  and  able  man. 

I  have  admired  the  course  of  the  Post  in  the  recent  storm 
not  yet  cleared  off.  There  is  more  wind  and  smoke  than  real 
hailstones,  though  the  Cloud  is  very  black  and  much  is  over 
turned  by  fury  of  the  wind.  A  paper  dollar  is  more  easily 
manufactured  than  a  silver  dollar,  but  it  is  not  so  solid.  The 
raw  material  of  the  paper  dollar  is  much  more  abundant  than 
the  raw  material  of  the  Gold  or  silver  dollar.  Yet  the  public 
opinion  of  this  Country  demands  the  free  use  of  paper.  On 
this  single  point  this  is  a  good  time  to  practice  in  our  com 
ments  the  Scriptural  injunction,  "be  moderate  in  all  things"! 
And  we  must  never  fail  to  practice  upon  the  injunction  "Be 
just  and  fear  not."  Be  true  to  your  own  opinions  and  be  kind, 
be  indulgent  to  the  opinions  of  men  who  are  suffering  under 
calamity. 

I  might  undertake  to  talk  if  I  did  not  know  you  are  in  the 
focus  and  see  &  know  and  feel  more  and  better  than  I  can.  I 
will  simply  say— the  world  turns  on  its  axis  every  day  as 


WILLIS  AND  BYRON'S  TRELAWNEY-FICATION   177 

usual.  The  grass  grows  after  a  shower— and  there  is  to  be  a 
bright  sky  even  over  the  City  of  New  York,  however  dark  the 
cloud  that  overshadows  it.  I  shall  come  and  see  you  next 
month.  I  read  your  letter  with  great  pleasure.  My  kindest 
remembrance  to  Mrs.  Bigelow  &  the  little  ones. 

Yours  truly 


PEESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  Deer.  19,  1857. 
My  good  Friend: 

Douglas  talks  and  acts  well.  He  is  frankly  cultivating  the 
good  will  of  Eepublicans  in  conversation.  ...  It  looks  to  me 
as  if  the  events  were  at  hand  and  the  blow  struck  that  will 
make  the  democratic  party  a  purely  southern  proslavery 
party.  When  reduced  to  this  it  must  die  out.  But  the  demo 
cratic  party  has  been  for  a  few  years  like  a  Kaleidoscope  pre 
senting  a  new  formation  with  every  jostle— blacker  &  blacker. 

The  exact  position  in  which  Kansas  may  be  presented  to  us 
is  not  yet  certain.  .  .  . 

Yours  truly 


N.  P.  WILLIS  TO  BIGELOW 

Private 

IDLEWILD,  May  12/58. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

I  am  rather  anxious  that  my  opinion  of  Trelawney  (as  ex 
pressed  in  the  enclosed  verses)  should  be  at  least  heard. 
When  in  England  I  saw  a  great  deal  of  Lord  Byron's  sister, 
(Mrs.  Leigh)  &  of  Col.  Leicester  Stanhope,  &  others  who  knew 
Byron 's  personal  qualities  well,  &  they  all  had  a  far  more 


178       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

generous  &  favorable  opinion  of  his  nature  than  is  given  in 
this  book.  It  seems  to  me  an  ingenious  letting  out  of  the  mat 
ter  of  an  old  sore  of  envy  &  hatred.  Will  you  oblige  me  by 
copying  the  lines  into  the  Post— though  without  saying  whose 
they  are  ? 

I  am  a  considerable  cripple  just  now,  from  having  played 
ploughshare  on  a  stony  bit  of  road,  &  being  trampled  on  mean 
time  by  the  horse,  (I  enclose  you  the  paragraph  of  our  rustic 
Daily  describing  it),  &  the  escape  of  my  "shop  tools, "  (head 
&  right  arm)  is  considered  by  the  neighbors  quite  a  miracle. 
My  daughter  Imogene  happened  to  be  taking  her  afternoon 
walk  &  she  picked  me  up  with  the  assistance  of  a  passing 
neighbor— so  it  all  turn'd  out  "as  well  as  could  be  expected. " 
But  my  legs  were  fairly  kneaded  with  the  Black  Prince's  gal 
loping  feet. 

I  hope  to  be  able  to  get  to  town  in  a  week  or  two,  and  to  have 
a  chat  with  you  on  board  the  Powell  or  elsewhere,  &,  mean 
time,  with  best  remembrances  to  Mrs.  Bigelow,  I  remain 

Yours  very  Sincerely 


BYRON 'S  TRELAWNEY-FICATION 

Poor  Byron  in  life  had  an  intimate  friend ; 

He  told  him  his  secrets,  he  read  him  his  songs ; 
And  he  trusted  that  when  he  should  come  to  his  end 

Trelawney  would  shelter  his  ashes  from  wrongs. 

In  this  friend  of  his  bosom  he  trusted— and  died— 

'Neath  the  sky  of  the  stranger — neglected  and  lone. 

And  his  friend  from  the  corpse  drew  the  cerements  aside, 
To  count  every  sore  and  to  measure  each  bone. 

Of  deformities  hidden,  of  sores  never  told, 

His  friend  gained  the  sight  by  the  shroud  thus  uplifted ; 

For,  of  all  that  the  world  will  the  soonest  pay  gold, 
There  is  nothing  so  relished  as  scorn  of  the  gifted. 

The  scorn  makes  a  book — and  the  secrets  are  known ! 

The  bard  so  immortal  was  pitiful,  even ! 
But,  hereafter,  the  gifted  will  pray,  with  a  groan, 

From  Trelawney-fication  deliver  us,  Heaven ! 


CONFLICT  BETWEEN  FREEDOM  AND  SLAVERY   179 
PEESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

OGDENSBURGH,  Oct.  27, 1858. 
My  dear  Friend: 

I  regret  exceedingly  that  I  shall  not  be  able  to  see  you  and 
counsel  with  you  on  my  way  to  Washington.  Your  going 
abroad  is  so  entirely  an  unexpected  event  that  I  do  not  know 
what  to  say.  Your  arrangements  to  take  your  family  look  like 
an  absence  of  considerable  time,  though  of  that  you  say  noth 
ing.  My  only  consolation  in  your  absence— for  I  feel  as  if  you 
were  gone— is  that  the  scenery  of  Europe  and  its  people  will 
interest  and  make  the  time  pleasant  to  yourself  and  Mrs. 
Bigelow.  I  wish  I  could  meet  you  there.  How  long  shall  you 
be  gone  ?  And  where  will  you  go  ?  I  must  hear  this  much  from 
you  before  you  go.— And  now  &  then  must  hear  from  you  over 
your  autograph  after  you  get  there— I  shall  read  of  course 
but  I  shall  not  be  content  with  what  I  read  in  common  with 
everybody  in  print.  I  have  heard  you  speak  of  visiting- 
Europe.  I  have  thought  or  dreamed  of  doing  so  myself,  but 
your  news  is  so  sudden  and  unexpected  that  you  and  all  your 
family  are  to  start  on  the  13th  that  it  seems  as  if  a  wall  was 
growing  up  between  us.  This  I  know  cannot  be.  I  shall  think 
of  you  more  when  the  sea  is  between  us  wide  and  deep  than  I 
have.  It  has  never  occurred  to  me  but  that  I  was  close  by  and 
could  communicate  with  you  or  see  you  at  any  time.  If  I  had 
any  right  to  do  so  I  believe  I  should  remonstrate,  but  I  ought 
not  to  do  so.  I  have  no  doubt  your  going  abroad  will  be  valu 
able  as  well  as  pleasant  to  you  and  that  is  enough.  With  Grace 
and  Johnny  &  little  Poultney  you  will  have  to  have  anchorage 
and  a  home  in  Europe.  Abijah  Mann  was  here  today— he 
came  about  noon  on  business— and  is  gone  this  evening.  He  is 
not  well  pleased  with  the  condition  of  things— but  he  is  not 
prepared  to  point  out  a  better  course  than  the  one  we  are  on. 
I  enquired  what  he  would  advise  ?  But  he  is  only  prepared  to 
say  that  affairs  do  not  look  well.  I  look  upon  the  present  con 
dition  of  things  &  the  prospects  of  the  future  with  confidence 
and  hope.  The  first  and  essential  thing  to  be  done  in  public 
affairs  is  to  settle  the  contest  between  freedom  and  slavery 
so  that  both  powers  shall  see  and  understand  that  freedom  is 


180       EETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

strongest  and  best  and  must  prevail  in  giving  character  and 
direction  to  the  administration  of  Government.  ...  I  would 
come  to  see  you,  if  I  thought  it  was  best,  and  bid  you  all  good 
bye  in  person  when  you  started.  I  have  no  doubt  of  the  iden 
tity  or  coincidence  of  our  opinions  and  I  trust  you  will  not 
permit  any  consideration  to  prevent  your  talking  most  freely 
and  fully  with  Mr.  Bryant  so  that  he  may  see  &  know  what  you 
have  seen  &  known  in  his  absence  &  also  what  you  judge  we 
should  do  in  the  future.  I  shall  see  him  after  you  are  gone  and 
shall  certainly  talk  with  him  most  freely  that  he  may  under 
stand  what  I  know  and  think— and  that  I  may  have  the  benefit 
of  his  counsel.  I  have  no  fear  that  your  views  &  mine  will 
differ  materially  whether  we  are  five  feet  or  five  thousand 
miles  apart.  I  am  looking  for  an  overwhelming  majority  for 
our  "State  Ticket. "  Tell  Mrs.  Bigelow  I  think  the  "State 
Ticket"— about  which  she  used  to  laugh  at  us  a  little  some  time 
ago— is  at  last  safe.  With  my  warmest  wishes  for  the  happi 
ness  of  yourself  and  family  &  with  the  expectation  that  you 
will  take  a  few  minutes  to  write  me  before  you  leave  New 
York,  I  am  Eyer  Yourg  truly 

This  is  awful  long  but  I  could  not  make  it  shorter. 


vni 

FIRST  VISIT  TO  EUROPE 
1858-1860 

DUEING  the  first  nine  years  of  my  connection  with  the 
Post,  Mr.  Bryant  made  two  excursions  to  Europe,  one 
to  Egypt  and  the  Holy  Land.  Shortly  after  his  return 
in  1858, 1  thought  it  was  due  to  myself,  to  my  wife,  and  to  our 
paper  to  visit  the  Old  World  and  to  improve  the  opportunity 
to  inform  myself  more  correctly  about  the  way  things  were 
done  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  Besides,  seven  years' 
continuous  and  most  arduous  work  on  the  paper  made  me  feel 
the  need  of  a  change. 

I  accordingly  sailed  with  my  wife  and  children  in  the 
steamer  Fulton,  Captain  Wotton,  on  the  13th  of  November, 
1858.  We  reached  Havre  on  the  28th,  and  Paris  on  the  29th 
of  November,  taking  lodgings  temporarily  at  the  Hotel  du 
Bad. 

Of  course  I  was  very  much  interested  by  what  I  saw,  heard, 
and  read  in  Paris.  To  an  American  Paris  could  not  help 
being  a  fascinating  place,  but  one  of  the  things  which  im 
pressed  me  most  during  my  brief  stay  at  this  time  is  not  set 
down  in  any  of  the  guide-books.  That  was,  when  walking  up 
the  Champs-filysees,  to  see  so  many  people  of  mature  years 
and  belonging  manifestly  in  a  large  proportion  to  the  educated 
and  mature  classes  of  society,  sitting  on  benches  or  chairs  by 
the  hour  without  a  book,  not  infrequently  without  any  com 
panion,  and  with  no  occupation  apparently  but  looking  idly 
upon  what  might  be  passing  up  and  down  on  that  famous 
driveway.  I  had  been  all  of  my  adult  life  so  constantly  em 
ployed  and  so  accustomed  always  to  have  work  in  prospect 
demanding  my  attention  or  forecast,  that  I  was  for  some  time 
utterly  at  a  loss  to  understand  the  state  of  mind  or  theory  of 
life  of  a  man  of  mature  years  sitting  for  hours  in  any  place 
doing  nothing  and  apparently  thinking  of  nothing.  It  was  a 
sight  which  could  never  have  been  seen  in  New  York  since  I 

181 


182       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

have  known  it.  One  might  have  found  our  people  sitting  alone 
or  in  groups  in  cafes  drinking  and  smoking  and  reading  the 
newspapers,  or  playing  dominoes  or  games,  but  never  on  the 
street  doing  none  of  these  things.  It  was  not  till  I  had  been 
in  Paris  fully  three  weeks  that  I  began  to  understand  the 
cause  of  this  difference,  and  was  able  to  sit  on  the  Boulevard, 
like  Widow  Bedott's  husband,  "a-thinkin'  o'  nothin',"  as  long 
as  any  Frenchman.  The  secret  was  in  the  climate  of  Paris, 
and,  I  may  indeed  say,  of  all  France— so  much  less  mercurial 
and  exciting  than  that  of  the  United  States.  I  have  since  dis 
covered  that  the  same  difference  was  remarked  by  Dr.  Frank 
lin  more  than  a  century  before.  Whenever  I  have  since  visited 
France,  I  have  uniformly  found  that  for  most  of  the  first 
month  of  my  stay  I  was  languid  and  indisposed  to  much  phys 
ical  or  intellectual  exertion.  I  felt  as  I  imagine  a  man  to  feel 
who  has  been  deprived  suddenly  of  his  customary  tipple. 
Hence  it  is,  I  presume,  that  our  physicians  so  wisely  prescribe 
a  few  months'  exile  in  Europe  for  Americans  whose  nervous 
system  has  been  overtaxed. 

I  have  very  little  of  special  interest  to  recall  further  than  to 
say  that  all  of  us,  from  the  greatest  unto  the  least — myself, 
wife,  and  three  children — spent  a  good  part  of  every  day  in 
becoming  better  acquainted  with  the  languages  of  the  coun 
tries.  The  venerable  Robert  Walsh  of  Philadelphia  was  Con 
sul  at  this  time,  and  I  recall  one  remark  he  made  which 
subsequent  experience  confirmed:  that  I  must  n't  believe  a 
Frenchman  when  he  said  he  spoke  English.  ' '  They  master  a 
few  words,  and  will  pretend  to  understand  you,  but  they 
never  do." 

On  the  29th  of  December  we  left  Paris  for  Lyons,  where  we 
stopped  over  a  day  to  visit  a  velvet  and  silk  factory,  under  the 
auspices  of  Mr.  Joel  White,  our  Consul  in  that  city.  In  the 
evening  we  were  introduced  by  Mr.  White  to  General  Castel 
lan,  who  was  the  officer  in  command  of  that  department.  He 
impressed  us  as  a  weak  old  man,  though  he  had  won  some 
fame  as  a  soldier  under  the  First  Napoleon. 

On  the  31st  of  December  we  went  to  Chambery,  taking  lodg 
ings  at  the  Hotel  du  Petit  Paris,  where  we  nearly  froze. 

The  following  morning  being  New  Year's,  we  drove  out  to 
the  Charmettes,  famous  as  the  residence  for  a  long  time  of 


ROUSSEAU  AND  MADAME   DE  WARENNES      183 

Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  and  Mme.  de  Warennes,  and  where  he 
says  he  passed  the  happiest  portion  of  his  life.  An  old  woman 
with  a  touch  of  the  goitre,  the  first  specimen  of  this  Alpine 
disorder  I  had  ever  seen,  showed  us  the  room,  which  had 
undergone  no  material  changes  since  it  was  occupied  by  the 
most  illustrious  of  its  tenants.  An  archaic-looking  piano  fall 
ing  to  pieces,  a  picture,  a  bust  of  Jean  Jacques,  and  a  portrait 
of  Mme.  de  Warennes  were  the  only  decorations  of  the  room. 
If  Mme.  de  Warennes 's  portrait  did  her  no  more  than  justice, 
she  must  have  been  a  very  handsome  woman.  My  wife  tried 
the  piano,  and  found  it  had  but  four  octaves. 

We  were  shown  two  or  three  volumes  in  which  had  been 
recorded  the  names  of  visitors,  with  such  remarks  as  the  visit 
suggested  to  the  visitors,  or  as  seemed  to  them  calculated  to 
instruct  future  visitors.  Some  complimented  Rousseau  as  a 
philosopher,  some  as  a  writer,  some  for  his  independence  of 
conventional  morals,  and  some  testified  their  gratitude  to 
Mme.  de  Warennes  for  what  she  had  done  for  his  comfort. 
There  was  great  sameness,  if  not  dullness,  in  most  of  the  in 
scriptions,  as  might  have  been  expected,  though  occasionally 
the  eye  rested  upon  something  of  interest.  Of  this  character 
were  the  following  lines  in  the  familiar  chirography  of  my 
friend,  the  Rev.  Henry  W.  Bellows,  then  pastor  of  the  Uni 
tarian  Society  in  New  York : 

The  beauty  of  this  fair  region,  to  which  a  curiosity  concerning  Rous 
seau  has  led  me,  makes  up  for  whatever  is  wanting  to  excite  genuine 
enthusiasm.  Yet  notwithstanding  his  moral  errors  and  weaknesses,  it 
was  much,  in  an  age  of  artificiality  and  outwardness,  to  attempt  to 
return  to  nature,  even  though  he  mistook  license  for  liberty,  ancl  pas 
sion  for  truth,  and  folly  for  simplicity,  on  the  way  to  it. 

(Signed)         HENRY  W.  BELLOWS,* 

New  York, 28, 1848. 

The  very  next  entry  was  made  by  some  person  who  either 
did  not  share  Mr.  Bellows 's  views  or  doubted  the  wisdom  of 
publishing  them  in  that  place.  An  asterisk  had  been  added  to 
the  name  of  Bellows,  and  an  asterisk  preceded  the  following 
inscription : 

*  May  your  name  be  as  ridiculous  as  the  above  words  must  ever 
make  it. 


184       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 
Here  is  another  entry,  in  French : 

Avoir  ete  Tun  des  deux  grands  noms  d'un  siecle ;  avoir  fait  ":6mile," 
"Le  contrat  social,"  "La  nouvelle  Heloi'se";  avoir  signe  "Les  con 
fessions"  et  etre  juge  par  des  Commis-Voyageurs  de  marchand,  des 
soirees  et  des  Pianistes,  ces  pages  ne  sont-elles  pas  les  colonnes  d 'Her 
cules  de  la  sottise  humaine  1 

24  aout,  1858. 
(Signed)        RONY  REVEILLON. 

This  entry  seemed  to  have  been  regarded  as.  personal  by  the 
next  visitor : 

Les  Colonnes  d 'Hercules  de  la  Sottise  Humaine  sont  les  stupides 
prejuges  dont  M.  Reveillon  semble  plein,  qu'il  en  applique  apelle  a 
Jean  Jacques,  puisqu'il  passait  avoir  1'un  sans  le  comprendre. 

(Signed)        C.  DANJEHN,  septembre. 

Afterwards,  feeling  apparently  that  he  had  not  done  full 
justice  to  the  subject,  M.  Danjehn  returns  to  the  attack  with 
the  following  postscript : 

Imbecile !  Nee  a  St.  Laurent,  dans  une  maison  de  la  levee,  sa  mere 
apprenez  a  lire  a  des  petits  enfants;  quelle  illustre  original.  Et  a-t-il 
bien  le  droit  de  faire  fi  de  Jean  dont  les  professions  n'ont  rien  que 

S.  T.  honorable. 

(Signed)         C.  D. 

The  Charmettes  was  then  owned  by  M.  Eaymond,  professor 
of  mathematics  of  the  College  National  of  Chambery,  who 
spends  September,  October,  and  November  there. 

We  left  Chambery  in  the  five-o'clock  train  that  afternoon. 
At  St.  Jean-de-Maurienne  we  took  the  diligence  at  9.30  P.M., 
reaching  Lanslebourg,  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  at  five  in 
the  morning.  Here  we  exchanged  our  diligence  for  a  covered 
sledge  in  which  we  ascended  and  crossed  the  Alps. 

It  was  the  night  of  the  1st  of  January.  The  tunnel,  though 
in  progress,  was  not  yet  complete.  The  night  was  fearfully 
cold,  though  the  sleighing  was  very  good.  We  were  indebted 
for  our  escape  from  freezing  chiefly  to  our  clothing,  no  provi 
sion  being  made  for  artificial  warmth.  It  was  a  dreary  ride, 
the  children  alone  getting  any  sleep.  We  happily  reached  the 


UNFINISHED  STATUE  OF  COLUMBUS  185 

summit  of  the  mountain  just  as  day  was  breaking  on  it,  and  I 
never  shall  forget  the  impression  I  received  as  we  went  down 
the  mountain  on  the  other  side,  with  the  view  of  Italy  spread 
out  before  us,  warmed  and  illuminated  by  the  rising  sun. 

We  tarried  in  Turin  long  enough  to  visit  the  university  and 
refresh  ourselves,  and  then  took  the  train  for  Genoa,  where  we 
arrived  January  5  at  the  Hotel  de  la  Ville.  Here  we  found  it 
so  impossible  to  warm  the  apartment  we  occupied  in  the  hotel 
where  we  stopped  that  we  concluded  to  reserve  the  pleasure  of 
slaking  our  thirst  for  information  about  the  birthplace  of  the 
discoverer  of  our  country  until  warmer  weather,  and  to  push 
on  where  there  was  either  more  sun  or  better  fireplaces. 

I  should  not  omit  to  state  that  while  at  Turin  I  bought  a 
worn  copy  of  Irving 's  "  Columbus, "  translated  into  Italian 
and  published  at  Turin  in  1829,  only  a  year  or  two  after  the 
original  appeared.  I  was  pleased  to  see  that  it  had  evidently 
been  pretty  conscientiously  read.  It  is  still  a  feature  of  my 
library. 

On  the  6th  of  January  I  engaged  a  vetturino  to  take  us  to 
Pisa.  As  everything  that  we  saw  and  heard  was  new,  as  I  had 
all  that  was  dearest  to  me  in  the  world  in  the  carriage  with  me, 
and  as  they  were  all  the  time  in  the  highest  spirits,  our  jour 
ney  was  an  exceedingly  pleasant  one  to  all  of  us. 

We  stopped  a  few  days  at  Carrara  to  visit  the  most  famous 
marble  quarries  in  Italy.  At  Carrara,  among  the  things  that 
attracted  our  attention,  were  the  unfinished  statue  of  Colum 
bus  ordered  for  the  city  of  Genoa ;  an  elaborate  marble  mantel 
and  ornaments  preparing  for  the  Eidgeways  of  Philadelphia ; 
the  statue  of  Michael  Angelo  by  himself,  located  only  a  few 
feet  from  the  house  in  which  he  used  to  live ;  and  the  f agade 
of  an  old  church. 

The  artist  who  received  the  original  order  for  the  Columbus 
died  insane.  The  causes  assigned  were,  first,  that  he  found  he 
had  taken  the  contract  at  too  low  a  figure,  and  lacked  the 
means  of  executing  it  properly;  and,  second,  one  of  his 
brothers  had  thrown  himself  out  of  a  window  and  killed  him 
self,  and  a  third  had  died  in  a  fit  of  anger.  The  survivor's 
grief,  his  poverty,  and  his  loneliness  so  preyed  upon  Mm  as  to 
unsettle  his  mind,  and  he  died  at  the  comparatively  early  age 
of  forty. 

We  slept  the  first  night  at  Sestri,  the  second  at  Spezzia,  the 


186        RETEOSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

third  at  Pietro  Santa,  and  reached  Pisa  at  eleven  o'clock  and 
took  lodgings  at  the  Hotel  Grand  Bretagne,  where  we  tarried 
a  few  days.  Here  for  the  first  time  since  leaving  Paris  we 
were  able  to  get  comfortably  warm.  The  sun  was  bright  and 
the  thermometer  rarely  below  74°  in  the  daytime. 


A  VISIT  TO  THE  SILENT  MONKS  OF  ITALY 

About  seven  miles  back  from  Pisa,  and  just  at  the  edge  of 
the  mountains,  is  one  of  the  oldest  and  richest  convents  of 
Carthusian  monks  in  Italy,  or  indeed  in  Europe.  Silence  and 
solitude  are  regarded  by  this  order  of  monks  as  the  two  cardi 
nal  human  agencies  for  the  regeneration  of  man,  and  the  more 
strict  and  faithful  of  their  order  never  speak  when  they  can 
avoid  it,  even  to  their  brethren.  The  convent  of  which  I  write 
was  founded  by  one  Petrus  Mirantis,  in  1366,  and  endowed  by 
him  with  an  income  of  some  twelve  hundred  dollars  a  year.  It 
received  large  accessions  of  wealth,  however,  afterwards,  from 
the  persons  who  were  admitted  to  the  society— most  of  whom 
are  said  to  have  been  of  noble  origin— much  of  which  has  been 
invested  in  a  structure  or  series  of  structures  covering  not  less 
than  four  acres  of  ground,  and  a  tract  of  land  of  indefinite 
extent,  which  is  cultivated  for  the  use  of  the  monks.  The 
stories  that  reached  us  of  this  convent  during  our  stay  at  Pisa 
determined  us  to  visit  it.  There  were  two  ladies  of  our  party, 
who  indulged  a  faint  hope  that  they  might  also  be  admitted  to 
a  view  of  its  mysteries,  though  aware  that,  by  the  regulations 
of  the  order,  none  of  their  sex  were  ever  permitted  to  pass  the 
gate  without  leave  from  the  Pope,  who,  by  virtue  of  his  gen 
eral  power  of  dispensing  all  ecclesiastical  obligations,  could 
allow  their  curiosity  to  be  gratified,  and  frequently  grants  such 
favors,  I  am  told.  We  were  about  an  hour  driving  to  the  con 
vent,  which  is  approached  through  a  high  gate,  from  which 
extend,  for  at  least  two  hundred  feet  in  opposite  directions, 
buildings  devoted  to  the  secular  and  industrial  necessities  .of 
the  community.  Over  this  gate  was  a  statue  of  St.  Bruno,  the 
founder  of  the  Order  of  Carthusians,  and  immediately  beneath 
the  following  inscriptions : 


THE  SILENT  MONKS  OF  ITALY  187 

0  Beata  Solitudo, 
0  Sola  Beatitude. 

Cartusia  Pisarum  fundatu,  An.  R.  S.  M  CCC  LX  VI. 

Habitantibus  hie  oppidum  career  Solitaria  vita  Coelestis  doctringe 
est  et  solitude  paradisus.  schola  est  et  Divinarum  Artium 

D.  HIERON,  de  Solit.  Laud.         Disciplina. 

D.  BASIL,  De  laud,  Vit.  Solit. 

An  unusually  liberal  assortment  of  beggars  lingered  around 
the  gates  waiting  our  approach,  and  immediately  upon  our 
announcement  a  man  presented  himself  dressed  in  a  white 
flannel  cassock  and  a  cap  of  the  same  material  closely  fitting 
to  the  top  of  his  head,  which  was  as  round  as  a  peach,  and  with 
just  about  as  much  hair  on  it,  for  he  was  closely  shaved. 
From  his  girdle  hung  a  rosary,  at  once  a  badge  and  the  prin 
cipal  implement  of  his  calling,  while  in  one  of  his  hands  he 
bore  a  bunch  of  keys.  He  looked  as  if  the  mortifications  of  the 
flesh  to  which  he  had  submitted  had  not  disagreed  with  him  in 
the  least,  for  he  answered  in  every  particular  to  Thomson's 

Fat,  round,  oily,  little  man  of  God 

in  "The  Castle  of  Indolence."  This  man,  though  dressed,  as 
we  afterwards  ascertained,  like  all  of  the  order,  was  a  servant, 
and  was  not  charged  with  the  higher  class  of  religious  duties 
imposed  upon  the  brethren  in  full  communion.  He  was  to  be 
our  guide,  and  entered  upon  his  duties  with  an  amiable  smile, 
which  showed  that  they  were  not  at  all  unwelcome  ones.  When 
we  proposed  to  take  the  ladies  with  us  he  said  it  could  not  be, 
but  promptly  invited  them  into  a  reception-room,  to  which 
there  was  access  by  a  door  in  the  side  of  the  arched  gateway 
that  led  into  the  enclosure.  On  the  wall  of  this  room,  opposite 
the  entrance,  we  read  the  following  words,  which,  as  the  apart 
ment  was  designed  mainly  for  the  accommodation  of  ladies, 
were  suspected  of  having  a  special  significance : 

Non  delectent  verba  sed  prosint. 

The  main  building,  in  the  centre  of  which  is  a  magnificent 
marble  entrance,  leading  by  many  steps  to  the  chapel,  is  about 
five  hundred  feet  in  length  and  three  stories  high,  with  wings 


188       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

of  equal  length  running  from  each  end  backwards  and  across 
the  rear,  forming  a  large  enclosure,  into  which  open  the 
cloisters,  or  dwellings  of  the  monks.  Each  monk  has  his  own 
apartments,  of  course,  for  solitude  and  silence  could  not  be 
fully  enjoyed  without  them.  They  consist  of  a  kitchen,  a  sit 
ting-room  or  study,  a  sort  of  working-room,  and  a  bedroom. 
To  each  is  also  added  a  small  garden,  in  which  we  saw  some 
oranges  ripening,  and  various  flowering  shrubs.  There  is  also 
a  little  hole,  or  rather  closet,  in  the  wall,  opening  upon  the 
area,  within  which  their  food  is  placed  by  an  invisible  hand, 
so  that  they  may  have  as  little  communication  as  possible  with 
each  other,  and  prolong  to  the  utmost  their  enjoyment  of  the 
unutterable  pleasures  of  silence.  In  the  main  building,  to 
which  we  were  first  introduced,  we  traversed  I  know  not  how 
many  apartments,  handsomely  furnished,  with  large  beds, 
which  our  guide  informed  us  were  for  the  use  of  strangers.  In 
former  years  it  had  been  the  usage  of  the  convent  to  give  any 
strangers  who  called  a  lodging  for  a  single  night,  but  now  he 
said  they  were  not  rich  enough  to  continue  the  practice.  As  it 
had  been  discontinued,  I  marvelled  to  find  so  many  large  double 
beds,  all  made  up  and  ready  for  immediate  occupation.  Per 
haps  our  guide  did  their  hospitality  injustice. 

Over  the  door  of  the  cloister  to  which  we  were  admitted  was 
the  following  inscription : 

Cella  non  facit  sanctos,  sed  operatic  bona  cellam  sanc- 
tificabit  et  nos.    AUG.  Serm.  27. 

Over  all  the  cloisters  were  inscriptions,  more  or  less  in  sym 
pathy  with  the  peculiar  polity  of  the  institution.  I  copied  two 
of  them  only.  One  ran  thus : 

Sedit  solitarius,  sed  pro  re  Christiana  non  Tacuit. 

The  other,  which  reflected  more  of  the  spirit  of  the  church 
militant,  ran  as  follows : 

Vivit  in  effuso  sanguine  prisca  fides. 

The  halls  and  almost  countless  apartments  abounded  in  pic 
tures  and  statuary,  but  I  saw  nothing  of  much  merit,  save 
some  small  bronzes  on  the  altar  of  the  chapel,  by  John  of 


THE  SILENT  MONKS  OF  ITALY  189 

Bologna,  and  an  angel  in  marble— an  exquisite  thing— which 
was  presented  anonymously  to  the  society.  The  altar  was  all  of 
mosaic,  and  the  silver  candlesticks  of  immense  size  and  weight 
—facts  to  which  our  attention  was  particularly  invited. 

We  passed  out  of  the  chapel  into  the  sacristy,  where  we  were 
shown  several  closets,  each  resembling  Hering's  large  safes, 
within  which  were  preserved  the  relics  of  sundry  saints. 
These  we  were  not  permitted  to  examine. 

The  refectory  of  the  convent,  where  the  monks  dined  to 
gether  on  feast-days  and  Sundays  only,  was  about  forty  feet 
long  and  twenty-five  feet  broad.  In  one  corner,  and  nearer  to 
the  ceiling  than  the  floor,  was  a  pulpit  and  a  shelf  of  books,  from 
which  one  of  the  order  is  accustomed  to  read  during  their 
repasts,  both  for  the  purpose  of  discouraging  the  yearnings 
for  conversation  natural  on  such  occasions,  and  also  to  assist 
in  withdrawing  the  wandering  thoughts  of  the  brethren  from 
secular  topics.  They  never  speak  to  each  other,  even  on  these 
occasions,  we  were  told,  except  to  ask  for  something  they  may 
want— a  reticence  which  they  did  not  violate  even  when  Cosmo 
di  Medicis  dined  with  them,  and  a  Queen  of  France  waited  on 
their  table— two  great  events  in  the  history  of  the  society,  of 
which  prodigious  frescoes  on  the  walls  bear  record.  Over  the 
picture  of  Cosmo  sitting  with  them  at  table  is  the  following 
inscription : 

Abstinuere,  loqui  quanquam— Essent  lege  Soluti. 

At  the  end  of  the  hall  was  a  fresco  designed  to  represent  the 
Last  Supper,  after  the  manner  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  and  I 
am  bound  to  say  it  was  a  long  way  after  it.  But  what  struck 
me  about  it  was  the  burden  of  provisions  and  joints  under 
which  the  table  groaned,  and  the  prominence  given  to  the 
prodigious  ham  in  the  centre.  Our  guide  informed  us  with 
undisguised  pride  that  it  was  the  work  of  one  of  the  fraternity. 
The  artist  evidently  had  felt  that,  though  the  somewhat  Lenten 
fare  provided  by  Da  Vinci  may  have  answered  in  former 
times,  something  more  substantial  was  required  by  the  apos 
tles  of  this  generation.  Another  thing  struck  me  about  this 
fresco.  The  brethren  eat  no  meat,  nor  even  eggs  or  fish,  on 
certain  fast-days,  nor  do  they  speak  at  table;  and  yet  the 
apostles  are  represented  indulging  themselves  in  all  the  deli- 


190        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

cacies  of  the  season,  their  Master  in  the  attitude  of  conversing 
with  them  freely,  according  to  the  sacred  record. 

After  spending  over  an  hour  in  wandering  from  room  to 
room,  each  having  the  same  general  characteristics,  I  asked  to 
be  shown  the  place  where  they  buried  their  dead.  They  took 
me  out  again  into  the  area,  with  which  I  have  already  said  the 
cloisters  communicate.  In  passing  to  it  through  the  hall  I  was 
a  little  startled  by  the  fresco  of  a  Grecian  sage  near  the  door, 
of  colossal  size,  with  his  finger  on  his  mouth,  as  if  prescribing 
silence,  and  beside  him  a  famous  goose,  its  open  mouth  stopped 
with  a  wedge-shaped  stone,  also  inculcating  the  same  lesson. 
From  the  selection  of  instructors  it  is  evident  that  the  artist 
intended  the  lesson  should  be  intelligible  to  every  grade  of 
understanding. 

A  plot  of  ground,  about  thirty  by  forty  feet,  in  the  area,  was 
shown  to  us  as  the  last  resting-place  of  all  of  the  brethren  who 
had  died  since  the  foundation  of  the  convent,  nearly  six  hun 
dred  years.  When  I  expressed  my  surprise  that  so  small  a 
space  should  have  answered  for  the  burial  of  so  many,  I  was 
told  that  they  used  no  coffins ;  that  in  that  soil  decomposition 
went  on  so  fast  that  no  traces  of  a  body  remained  after  lying 
in  it  five  years;  that  they  erected  no  tombstones,  and  conse 
quently  they  kept  on  burying  in  the  same  little  plot,  and  might 
continue  to  do  so  for  centuries  to  come,  without  disturbing  any 
one's  visible  remains.  When  I  say  they  erect  no  tombstones, 
I  mean  to  members  of  their  own  fraternity.  Strangers  who 
die  there,  especially  if  wealthy  or  distinguished  enough  to 
make  it  an  object,1  have  tablets  placed  over  their  remains,  but 
they  are  interred  in  a  different  plot  of  ground,  separated  by  a 
wall  from  that  which  is  devoted  to  the  monks. 

The  monks  think  the  rapid  decomposition  which  takes  place 
in  the  soil  a  great  merit,  as  it  in  that  respect  resembles,  in  some 
degree,  the  ground  brought  from  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  at  great 
expense,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  for  the  famous  Campo  Santo  of 
Pisa,  in  which  it  is  most  distinctly  affirmed  that  a  body  would 
decompose  in  a  single  day. 

All  these  spacious  and  costly  accommodations,  representing 
a  capital  of  not  less  certainly  than  half  a  million  of  dollars; 

1  Thus  Tasso's  remains  are  deposited  at  Rome,  in  the  Convent  of  St. 
Onofrio,  where  he  sickened  and  died  when  he  came  to  the  Capitol  to  be 
crowned  with  the  poet's  laurel,  which  had  been  decreed  to  him  by  the  Pope. 


THE  SILENT  MONKS  OF  ITALY  191 

are  now  appropriated  exclusively  to  the  physical  and  spiritual 
refection  of  twenty-four  persons.  I  saw  most  of  them  as  they 
passed  in  to  vespers,  but  tried  in  vain  to  detect  any  evidence, 
either  in  their  appearance  or  employments,  of  their  having 
turned  their  choice  opportunities  for  retirement  and  repose  to 
much  account.  They  are  all  required,  I  was  told,  to  preach  at 
least  one  sermon  during  Lent,  and,  I  believe,  it  is  among  the 
obligations  of  their  order  to  visit  the  sick  and  dying ;  but  it  is 
mainly  by  silence  and  separation  from  the  world  that  they 
hope  to  guard  themselves  most  effectually  from  the  tempta 
tions  of  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil,  and  thereby  best 
commend  themselves  to  the  Author  of  their  being.  I  knew  that 
there  were  many  monasteries  of  the  Carthusian  Order  in 
Europe,  but  I  never  had  a  realizing  sense  of  their  existence 
before.  I  had  no  just  conception  of  any  phenomenon  so  illogi 
cal  as  an  apostle  of  Christ  living  for  years  without  opening 
his  lips— of  a  teacher  of  the  Gospel  avoiding  all  communion 
with  his  fellow-men,  or  of  a  "doer  of  the  Word"  doing  noth 
ing.  It  seemed  like  one  of  those  absurdities  which  only  de 
ranged  people  perpetrate,  and  which  do  not  endure:  like  an 
idiosyncrasy  or  a  folly  which  must  perish  with  its  author,  or 
vanish  with  the  darkness  or  disorder  in  which  it  finds  refuge. 
But  the  Carthusian  monasteries  are  among  the  oldest  institu 
tions  now  in  existence ;  they  are  older  than  the  art  of  printing, 
or  the  science  of  navigation,  or  the  Newtonian  theory  of  gravi 
tation;  they  were  antiquities  when  America  was  discovered. 
The  followers  of  St.  Bruno  might  have  discussed  the  merits  of 
his  religious  system  with  Galileo,  while  he  was  working  out  his 
theory  of  the  pendulum  at  the  cathedral  in  Pisa,  and  when  all 
the  world  still  believed  that  the  earth  was  the  centre  of 'the 
solar  system.  If  the  Carthusian  method  of  perfecting  the 
Christian  character,  then,  be  a  delusion,  as  I  have  no  doubt  it 
is,  it  is  one  of  those  delusions  for  which  poor  human  nature 
must  have  very  strong  affinities  of  some  kind,  to  endure  so 
long  and  still  offer  the  strongest  attractions  to  multitudes 
every  year.  In  seeking  for  the  explanation  of  such  an  extraor 
dinary  vitality  in  an  organization  which  seemed  at  war  not 
only  with  our  Protestant  notion  that  a  Christian  has  positive 
as  well  as  negative  duties  to  his  neighbors  to  discharge,  but 
also  at  war  with  common  sense,  I  was  led  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  delusion  of  which  these  poor  creatures  are  the  victims  is 


192       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

by  no  means  confined  to  the  Carthusians,  or  to  Italy,  Koman- 
ists,  or  even  to  any  particular  religious  sect,  but  that  it  pre 
vails  to  a  large  extent  among  all  sects  and  in  all  countries.  All 
who  permit  themselves  to  become  so  absorbed  by  their  employ 
ment  as  to  neglect  what  seem  to  be  secondary  duties:  their 
duties,  for  example,  to  their  family,  to  their  neighbors,  to  their 
country,  and  even  to  their  Maker ;  all  who  devote  more  than  a 
due  share  of  their  time  to  adding  to  their  worldly  fame  and 
possessions ;  all  who  overtask  their  strength,  peril  their  health, 
or  unduly  tax  their  time  to  ensure  the  accomplishment  even  of 
apparently  desirable  results— and  who  does  not  one  or  all 
these!— are  guilty  of  precisely  the  error,  I  may  say  the  folly, 
which  seems  to  most  of  the  world  altogether  ridiculous  and 
incomprehensible  in  the  Carthusian.  All  act  alike  from  a  com 
mon  want  of  faith  in  Providence,  and  a  common  impression 
that  there  are  some  duties  required  of  them  which,  if  they  dis 
charge  faithfully;  will  entail  evil  consequences,  against  which 
their  Maker  will  forget  or  neglect  to  protect  them.  Therefore, 
as  if  to  guard  against  the  oversight  of  the  Godhead,  or  any 
false  estimate  of  their  strength  to  do  good  or  resist  evil  which 
it  may  possibly  make,  they  undertake  to  judge  for  themselves 
which  of  the  divine  commands  it  is  most  important  for  them  to 
observe,  and  which  can  be  most  safely  disregarded.  Whatever 
may  be  their  possessions,  they  cannot  rest  till  they  erect  one 
more  barrier  against  the  wolf  which  they  are  ever  expecting 
at  the  door— till  they  have  taken  one  more  bond  from  fortune. 
However  influential  they  are  among  men,  they  will  never  cease 
their  efforts  to  grasp  new  power  and  influence,  when  an  oppor 
tunity  offers,  lest  God's  promises  to  those  who  serve  Him 
faithfully  should  be  shabbily  kept.  How  many  "exemplary 
Christians"  may  be  found  in  every  religious  community,  and 
more  especially  in  the  United  States,  who,  though  blessed  with 
ample,  sometimes  princely  means,  rarely  find  time  even  to 
dine  with  their  families  more  than  one  day  in  seven,  much  less 
to  take  a  direct  and  active  interest  in  their  pleasures  and  em-* 
ployment ;  who  immure  themselves  in  shops  far  more  gloomy 
than  the  conventual  cloister,  without  a  glimpse  of  the  beautiful 
sky,  or  the  green  grass,  or  the  running  brooks,  from  one  year's 
end  to  another,  except  perchance  from  the  rail-car  in  which 
they  may  be  hurrying  through  the  country  on  errands  of  busi 
ness,  or  to  place  their  families  to  board  for  a  season ;  who 


THE  SILENT  MONKS  OF  ITALY  193 

take  no  thought  whatever  for  the  culture  of  their  tastes  or 
sensibilities,  and  scarcely  give  a  moment's  heed  to  one  of  the 
thousand  appeals  which  society  is  constantly  addressing  to 
them !  And  their  excuse  for  taking  so  much  better  care*  of  the 
future  than  of  the  present  is  that  they  wish  to  make  themselves 
a  little  more  secure  against  reverses — as  if  reverses  were 
never  blessings  to  men,  if  ever  anything  else.  They  wish  to 
strengthen  their  power  and  influence  by  a  few  more  acquisi 
tions,  as  if  they  supposed,  like  the  children  of  men  in  the  plain 
of  Shinar,  they  could  build  them  a  tower  and  make  them  a 
name  which  would  enable  them  to  defy  misfortune  in  all  future 
time.  When  these  results  are  accomplished,  and  the  future  is 
properly  secured,  then  they  all  promise  themselves  great 
pleasure  in  attending  to  the  homely  duties  which  lie  neglected 
at  their  fireside.  In  other  words,  like  the  architects  of  Babel, 
they  have  more  confidence  in  what  they  can  do  for  themselves, 
a  great  deal,  than  in  what  Providence  will  do  for  them. 

It  is  a  similar  want  of  faith  in  Providence,  this  practical 
atheism,  that  leads  the  Carthusian  to  seal  his  lips  and  shut 
himself  up  in  his  cell, i  '  the  world  forgetting,  by  the  world  for 
got,  ' '  for  the  purpose  of  dedicating  himself  to  God.  To  escape 
the  temptations  of  the  world,  he  neglects  all  his  duties  in  the 
world;  lest  the  sinner  should  entice  him  to  sin,  he  withdraws 
his  support  of  his  precept  and  example  from  his  struggling 
brothers ;  though  voluntarily  dedicated  to  the  preaching  of  the 
Gospel,  he  shuns  the  paths  of  men,  lest  sufficient  strength 
should  not  be  given  him  to  resist  the  fascinations  of  the  devil. 
He  buries  his  talent  in  a  napkin,  because,  of  the  two  powers 
which  rule  in  this  world,  he  thinks  Satan  is  much  the  most  wide 
awake,  if  not  the  most  powerful.  The  entire  sum  of  a  Christian 
life,  in  his  eyes,  is  to  do  nothing,  that  he  may  do  no  evil.  To 
him  perpetual  sleep  would  be  the  highest  spiritual  privilege. 
The  idea  of  doing  good,  of  resisting  temptation,  of  overcom 
ing  evil,  of  setting  an  example  by  which  others  may  be  guided 
and  supported,  forms  no  part  of  the  Carthusian's  religious 
economy;  and  why?  because  he  practically  distrusts  God's 
promise  to  give,  to  such  as  earnestly  ask  it,  the  strength  neces 
sary  to  resist  all  the  temptations  to  which  they  may  expose 
themselves  in  His  service.  He  only  half  believes  the  Bible. 
He  believes  the  devil  will  do  all  it  says  he  will,  but  he  has  not 
entire  confidence  that  God's  promise  will  be  as  faithfully  ob- 


194       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

served.  Hence,  like  the  large  class  of  Christians  to  whom  I 
have  compared  them,  the  Carthusians  undertake  to  be  a  Prov 
idence  unto  themselves ;  to  judge  exactly  how  much  temptation 
they  can  stand  whether  they  have  divine  aid  or  not,  and  rest 
there. 

When  I  came  to  reflect  how  universal  was  the  weakness,  the 
infidelity  rather,  of  which  this  convent  was  but  a  single  and 
certainly  a  well-disposed  expression,  I  ceased  to  feel  that  it 
was  a  subject  for  ridicule,  as  it  seemed  at  first,  but  regarded 
it  rather  as  a  mirror,  in  which  even  the  best  of  men  may  see 
but  too  faithfully  reflected  the  animating  spirit  of  what  they 
often  class  among  their  best  endeavors.  Whether  we  show 
our  distrust  of  Providence  by  withdrawing  from  the  world,  or 
in  our  dealings  with  it,  is  of  little  consequence  in  the  eyes  at 
least  of  Infinite  Wisdom;  peace  purchased  with  the  sword, 
truth  propagated  by  violence,  reform  conducted  fanatically, 
human  policies  and  plans  persisted  in  without  reference  to  the 
prejudices  and  infirmities  of  our  fellows,  betray  the  same  want 
of  faith  in  God,  and  undue  confidence  in  ourselves,  which 
brought  confusion  upon  the  builders  of  Babel ;  and  those  who 
participate  in  such  follies  merit  contempt  or  pity  quite  as 
much,  for  aught  I  see,  as  the  eremite  who  spends  his  lonely 
days  in  watching  the  decay  of  all  his  faculties  for  usefulness 
within  the  cloisters  of  a  monastery. 

Among  other  things  which  we  visited  while  at  Pisa,  was  a 

painting  by  Guido  in  the  Palace  San ,  which  I  believe  is 

rarely  seen  by  tourists.  The  subject  of  it  is  Amor  Sacro  and 
Amor  Profano,  and  it  was  the  only  picture  exhibited  in  the 
palace.  Amor  Sacro  is  represented  burning  the  quiver  and 
arrows  of  Cupid,  who  is  blindfolded  and  bound  with  his  hands 
behind  him  to  some  indistinct  object,  perchance  a  tree.  Beside 
the  picture  of  Amor  Sacro  is  a  music-book  open,  a  violin,  two 
pipes,  with  some  other  musical  instruments,  and  a  pen.  It  was 
an  admirable  painting,  of  course,  and  reminded  me  at  once  of 
Bryant's  "Burial  of  Love,"  but  in  conception  how  inferior! 

In  the  afternoon  we  drove  by  the  Palace  Lanf ranchi,  also  on 
the  Arno,  where  Lord  Byron  lived  in  1822,  and  kept  there  a  sort 
of  menagerie.  Valery  intimates  that  he  had  to  leave  Pisa  in 
consequence  of  some  misconduct  only  hinted  at.  We  also 
drove  to  the  grand  duke's  farm,  where  he  had  over  two  hun- 


CRAWFORD  IN  FLORENCE  195 

dred  camels.  The  attendant  told  me  that  camels  had  been  on 
the  place  over  two  hundred  years,  and  that  all  I  saw  had  been 
born  on  it.  This  estate  extends  from  the  city  of  Pisa  to  the 
sea,  about  five  and  a  half  miles  one  way,  and  about  six  the 
other. 

When  we  were  thoroughly  warmed  through,  which  took 
about  a  week,  we  started  for  Florence.  Here  we  took  an  apart 
ment  and  tarried  for  a  month,  studying  Italian  when  not  visit 
ing  the  famous  galleries  of  the  city  and  its  shops,  which  then 
were  to  us  an  inexhaustible  if  somewhat  expensive  pleasure. 

My  wife  purchased  a  very  considerable  number  of  alabaster 
figures,  and  as  it  was  idle  to  think  of  carrying  them  about  with 
us  in  our  baggage,  we  had  them  carefully  boxed  up  by  the 
merchant  from  whom  they  were  purchased  to  be  shipped  to 
New  York.  Not  hearing  for  a  month  or  more  of  their  arrival, 
we  were  told  upon  inquiry  that  the  vessel  in  which  they  were 
shipped  was  lost.  I  think  it  more  possible  that  they  were 
never  shipped  at  all,  which  I  learned  was  not  an  uncommon 
experience  with  green  Americans. 

It  was  during  this  visit  that  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  Mr. 
Crawford,  the  sculptor,  some  of  whose  works  had  made  him 
famous  in  America.  Mr.  Bryant  had  been  good  enough  to  give 
me  a  letter  to  him. 

While  in  Florence  I  received  the  following  letter  from  Pres 
ton  King,  pregnant  with  dissidences  which  after  the  lapse  of 
fifty  years  are  still  subjects  of  debate. 


PRESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  Jany.  3d,  1859. 
My  dear  Friend: 

I  received  your  letter  of  Saturday  before  you  left  the  Squir 
rels  and  was  very  sorry  I  could  not  come  and  see  you.  As  I 
could  not  I  consoled  myself  with  the  idea  that  .  .  .  whether 
we  talk  it  over  together  or  not  our  minds  will  come  to  the  same 
conclusion  upon  pretty  much  all  questions  of  public  interest. 
...  I  was  imperiously  required  at  home  and  did  not  leave 
there  till  the  29th  of  November.  I  made  no  stop  at  all  in 
Albany.  In  New  York  I  saw  Mr.  Welles  of  Hartford,  who,  as 


196        RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

you  know,  has  apprehensions  of  Govr.  Seward  and  of  the  suc 
cess  of  an  administration  of  which  he  is  to  be  the  head.  I  told 
him  I  was  distinctly  and  decidedly  for  Seward 's  nomination  in 
1860  and  desired  and  trusted  that  the  Eepublicans  of  New 
York  would  be  united  by  him  &  cordially  in  his  favor.  Our 
friend  Abijah  Mann  looked  with  more  hope  upon  the  condition 
of  things  than  he  did  a  few  weeks  before  the  Election  when  I 
saw  him  at  Ogdensburgh.  I  had  a  talk  with  Mr.  Bryant  and 
stated  frankly  my  opinion  in  favor  of  Seward 's  nomination. 
He  said  he  should  support  any  nomination  made  by  the  Eepub 
licans  ;  that  he  preferred  Seward  to  anybody  the  Democrats  had 
of  late  years  presented,  though  he  had  some  apprehensions 
of  Seward.  He  had  no  candidate  or  at  least  he  named  none. 
Mr.  Welles 1  and  I  dined  with  Governor  Morgan  and  his  family 
and  spent  the  evening  at  his  house.  .  .  . 

At  the  expiration  of  the  month  we  decided  to  move  on  to 
Eome.  Here  we  were  obliged  to  take  a  new  vetturino.  The 
day  before  our  departure  a  friend  wrote  to  ask  us,  as  he 
understood  we  had  a  vacant  seat  in  our  carriage,  if  it  would  be 
agreeable  to  us  to  let  a  young  gentleman  from  Boston,  who 
was  going  to  Eome,  occupy  it,  the  writer  vouching  for  his 
availability  as  a  travelling  companion. 

We  were  rather  pleased  than  otherwise  at  this  addition  to 
our  party,  and  subsequent  events  led  me  to  regard  this  applica 
tion  as  a  memorable  and  a  happy  coincidence.  The  young 
gentleman  proved  to  be  a  Mr.  James  W.  Brooks,  the  son  of  a 
country  lawyer  of  Petersham,  Massachusetts.  Later  on  I  may 
have  further  occasion  to  speak  of  him. 

We  spent  a  month  in  Eome.  We  visited  everything  recom 
mended  by  Murray  and  paid  our  respects  to  Pio  Nono,  for 
which  occasion  my  wife  had  loaded  herself  down  with  neck 
laces,  beads,  crosses,  and  other  ecclesiastical  "bigotry,"  which, 
after  receiving  the  blessing  of  his  Holiness,  were  distributed 
on  our  return  to  the  United  States  for  several  years  as  pres 
ents  to  her  faithful  domestics  of  the  Catholic  communion. 

We  also  visited  so  many  churches  that  when  we  left  I  made 

i  *  Neither  Welles  nor  Abijah  Mann  ever  struggled  quite  successfully  with 
their  prejudices  against  Seward.  Both  had  fought  him  too  many  years  as 
a  Whig  Governor  and  United  States  Senator  to  have  their  antagonism  neu 
tralized  by  the  harmonizing  oil  of  antislavery  only. 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  ROME  197 

a  vow,  which  I  have  pretty  faithfully  kept,  never  to  visit  an 
other  church  merely  to  gratify  my  curiosity. 

My  most  pleasant  recollections  of  my  visit  to  Kome  are  asso 
ciated  with  the  home  of  Miss  Cushman  and  her  friend,  Miss 
Stebbins.  They  kept  the  most  agreeable  American  house  in 
those  days,  and  Miss  Cushman  herself  was  alone  enough  to 
fill  any  salon.  I  had  been  a  great  admirer  of  her  histrionic 
talent,  but  had  never  been  presented  to  her  before.  I  may  be 
excused  for  referring  here  to  an  evidence  of  her  professional 
talent  which  I  had  witnessed  only  a  few  years  before  in  New 
York  and  would  be  ashamed  to  forget. 

She  was  playing  Meg  Merrilies  one  night  at  Niblo  's  Garden. 
I  was  in  the  right-hand  box  nearest  the  stage,  accompanied  by 
the  young  lady  who  afterwards  became  my  wife,  and  her 
cousin. 

My  future  wife,  being  of  Quaker  descent,  had  had  very  little 
experience  of  theatres,  and  I  esteemed  it  an  encouraging  evi 
dence  of  the  progress  of  my  suit  for  her  hand  that  she  was 
permitted  to  go  with  me  on  this  occasion. 

Miss  Cushman  in  that  play  made  her  first  appearance  from 
the  opposite  side  of  the  stage  almost  directly  in  front  of  our 
box.  Those  who  have  seen  her  in  that  part  can  only  under 
stand—no  one  can  describe— the  effect  which  she  produced  by 
her  make-up.  As  she  stalked  in  slowly,  my  wife  began  to  rise 
—forgetful  of  everything  but  that  weird  and  fearful  figure 
approaching  us— till  she  was  standing  straight  up,  not  sus 
pecting  the  attention  she  was  attracting  until  her  cousin  pulled 
her  skirt  and  told  her  to  sit  down.  But  what  interested  me 
more  than  her  entrancement  was  to  see  it  reflected  in  the  face 
of  the  veteran  manager  of  the  Bowery  Theatre,  who  was  sit 
ting  on  a  bench  four  or  five  yards  from  us  in  the  pit,  watching 
with  a  delighted  professional  interest  this  demonstration  of 
the  power  Miss  Cushman  was  exerting  on  at  least  one  of  her 
audience. 

I  left  Eome  after  a  visit  of  only  about  a  single  month,  for 
Naples,  under  the  firm  conviction,  which  has  never  been 
shaken,  that  it  was  the  most  interesting  city  I  had  yet  seen  or 
ever  expected  to  see. 


198        BETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 


THE  MARBLES  OF  THE  MARQUIS  DE  CAMPANA 

During  my  stay  in  Eome  the  famous  collection  of  marbles 
and  historic  remains  of  ancient  Eome,  excavated  under  the 
auspices  and  largely  at  the  expense  of  the  Marquis  de  Cam- 
pana,  were  on  exhibition.  The  marquis,  I  understood,  had  in 
some  way  incurred  the  hostility  of  the  papal  government  in 
acquiring  or  retaining  possession  of  the  excavations,  and  was 
compelled  to  put  this  collection  of  marbles  on  the  market.  The 
feature  of  the  collection  which  interested  me  most,  and  which 
was  quite  unique,  was  the  heads  of  the  Caesars,  more  complete 
than  any  other  collection  in  the  world.  The  Metropolitan 
Museum  of  Art  had  then  just  been  established  in  New  York, 
and  it  occurred  to  me  that  this  collection  was  just  what  it 
wanted  to  give  it  a  start  in  the  world.  I  wrote  the  following 
letter  upon  the  subject  to  Mr.  Bryant,  who  had  been  one  of  the 
most  active  promoters  of  the  museum,  giving  him  a  brief  ac 
count  of  the  collection,  and  recommended  him  to  bring  the 
matter  before  the  trustees  of  the  museum ;  and  in  my  letter  I 
enclosed  another  from  Mr.  Wolff,  a  German  sculptor  of  dis 
tinction,  then  prosecuting  his  profession  in  Eome,  in  which  he 
gave  a  professional  opinion  of  the  merits  and  value  of  the 
collection. 

BIGELOW  TO  WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT 

PARIS,  June  20, 1859. 
Dear  Mr.  Bryant: 

There  is  just  now  to  be  had  at  Eome  what  the  French  shop 
keepers  would  call  an  "  occasion, "  and  I  wish  I  knew  how  to 
invoke  some  muse  by  whose  aid  I  might  persuade  my  country 
men  to  take  advantage  of  it.  The  splendid  art  collection  of  the 
Marquis  of  Campana,  embracing  one  of  the  finest  galleries  of 
antique  statuary  in  the  world,  is  now  for  sale,  upon  highly 
favorable  terms,  and  presents  an  opportunity  for  laying  the 
foundation  of  a  school  of  art  in  the  United  States  which  has 
not  occurred  before  in  many  years,  and  can  hardly  occur  again 
in  centuries. 


THE  CAMPANA  MARBLES          199 

The  Marquis  of  Campana,  it  will  be  remembered  I  presume 
by  many  of  the  readers  of  the  Evening  Post,  was  arrested, 
tried  and  imprisoned  about  a  year  ago  upon  the  charge  of  em 
bezzling  the  funds  of  the  Monte  de  Pieta,  of  which  he  was  the 
head  director.  From  what  I  can  learn  he  was  as  much  sinned 
against  as  sinning.  It  was  his  duty  as  an  officer  of  the  Monte 
de  Pieta  to  lend  its  funds ;  as  an  enthusiast  in  regard  to  antique 
art  he  was  forced  in  spite  of  his  large  resources  to  become  a 
borrower,  and  his  associates  in  the  Monte  de  Pieta  were  but 
too  happy  to  have  him  take  its  funds  at  the  liberal  rate  of 
interest  which  he  was  willing  to  pay.  He  continued  to  buy 
statues  and  excavate  monuments  of  ancient  art  until  his  ob 
ligations  to  the  Bank  amounted  to  more  than  $2,000,000,  which 
he  secured  by  mortgages  upon  his  collections.  At  last  some 
suspicions  were  awakened,  unjustly  as  was  afterwards  proved, 
that  he  had  been  secretly  impairing  the  value  of  some  of  the 
securities,  replacing  diamonds  and  pearls  with  paste  and 
things  of  that  kind,  which  resulted  in  a  sudden  demand  being 
made  upon  him  for  his  entire  indebtedness.  He  was  unable  to 
meet  it  within  the  time  allowed  him  by  his  enemies  (for  he  was 
undoubtedly  pursued  in  a  hostile  spirit),  he  was  tried  and  con 
victed  and  sentenced  to  lie  down  and  rise  up  every  day  with  a 
throng  of  the  most  desperate  thieves  and  cut-throats  in  one  of 
the  foulest  prisons  in  the  world,  the  Papal  prison  at  Eome,  for 
twenty  years. 

The  Papal  government  at  last,  partly  through  shame  I  think 
and  partly  in  consequence  of  the  strong  representations  made 
by  other  governments  in  behalf  of  the  Marquis,  consented  to 
take  his  collection  and  give  him  liberty,  with  the  privilege  of 
selling  all  or  any  part  of  it  and  of  retaining  all  that  he  could 
get  for  it  over  and  above  one  million  scudi,  the  scudi  being 
worth  about  a  dollar  and  ten  cents.  He  was  released  about  a 
month  ago  upon  these  terms  and  is  now  residing  in  or  near 
Naples. 

The  Papal  government  stands  very  much  in  need  of  money 
and  cannot  much  longer  get  along  with  the  money  which  it  has 
been  obliged  to  advance  to  the  creditors  of  the  bank.  The 
European  governments  have  just  about  as  many  claims  upon 
their  finances  as  they  are  prepared  to  meet,  and  there  is  no 
probability  of  any  individual  or  private  company  stepping  for 
ward  to  purchase  such  a  gallery  as  this,  unless  it  should  be 


200        RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

from  the  United  States,  where  such  exhibitions  of  public  spirit 
are  not  uncommon,  and  where  the  constitutional  limitations  of 
the  government  furnish  more  occasion  for  them.  It  is  suffi 
ciently  obvious  I  presume  from  these  facts— the  destitute  con 
dition  of  the  Marquis,  the  desperate  state  of  the  Papal  finances 
and  the  absence  of  all  serious  competition,  for  the  present- 
that  a  more  propitious  moment  for  purchasing  this  collection 
could  hardly  be  selected. 

I  will  now  endeavor  to  give  some  idea  of  the  extent  and 
value  of  this  collection,  though  it  must  necessarily  be  a  very 
imperfect  one,  unless  I  expand  this  letter  to  a  volume. 

I  have  already  intimated  that  the  misfortunes  of  the  Mar 
quis  had  their  origin  in  an  undisciplined  passion  for  antique 
art.  He  came  honestly  by  it,  for  both  his  father  and  grand 
father  had  it  before  him ;  and  among  them  they  have  excavated 
almost  every  corner  of  Italy  and  parts  of  Greece.  The  Mar 
quis  himself  has  made  his  most  elaborate  excavations  in  the 
vicinity  of  Eome,  among  the  cities  of  ancient  Latium,  the  ter 
ritory  of  ancient  Cuma  and  Sorrento,  among  the  old  burial 
places  of  Etrusca.  His  collection  is  divided  into  ten  sections. 

The  first  embraces  ancient  Greek  and  Eoman  sculpture.  It 
is  the  finest  collection  in  the  world  outside  of  Eome,  as  I  am 
told  by  artists  familiar  with  all  the  collections  of  Europe.  It 
certainly  contains  tHe  finest  collection  of  the  Caesars  in  the 
world,  not  excepting  that  of  the  Vatican,  or  that  of  the  Pitti 
Palace  at  Florence,  both  of  which  I  have  seen,  and  about  which 
therefore  I  feel  prepared  to  speak  with  some  confidence.  But 
of  the  marbles  I  shall  have  something  more  to  say  by-and-bye, 
for  it  is  in  them  only  that  I  wish  to  interest  all  who  rejoice  in 
every  new  attraction  that  is  added  to  our  great  metropolis. 

The  second  collection  embraces  bronzes— Greek,  Eoman, 
Etruscan;  statues,  busts,  urns,  defensive  and  offensive  arms, 
mirrors,  vases,  candelabras,  strigils,  domestic  and  sacred 
utensils  in  use  among  the  ancients. 

The  third  embraces  the  largest  collection  of  antique  terra 
cottas  in  the  world.1 

1  An  account  of  this  collection  of  terra-cottas  was  published  at  Rome  in 
1852,  entitled  "Antichi  Opere  in  Plastica  da  G.  P.  Campana,  Marches!  di 
Cavelli,  Conte  Lateranense,  Commendatore  di  Danebrog  e  di  Passonia, 
"Officiate  della  Legion  di  Onore,  Membro  della  Pontinca  Academia  di  Archio- 
logia,  Correspondente  del  Institute  di  Francis,  etc."  In  folio.  Roma, 
MDCCCLIL 


THE  CAMPANA  MARBLES          201 

The  fourth  embraces  gold  and  silver  jewelry  of  every  kind 
in  use  among  the  ancients  for  the  toilet  of  the  men  and  women ; 
for  the  ornament  and  attire  of  priests,  warriors,  etc.,  and  also 
at  funerals. 

The  fifth  embraces  a  precious  collection  of  Etruscan  vases, 
also  the  most  complete  in  the  world,  taken  from  the  burial 
places  of  the  Veii,  Ceres,  Tarquinia,  Volscia,  Perugia,  Vetu- 
lonia  and  Chiusi.  Upon  these  vases  may  be  found  a  represen 
tation  of  all  the  Homeric  poems ;  the  battle  of  the  Giants,  the 
taking  of  Troy,  the  history  of  Achilles,  of  Hector,  the  Argo 
nauts,  the  Danaides,  etc. 

The  sixth  contains  medals,  of  which  more  than  four  hundred 
are  of  gold  and  cover  most  of  the  entire  period  from  the 
republic  down  to  the  overthrow  of  the  empire,  terminating 
with  the  Emperor  Phocas.  The  historical  value  of  such  a  col 
lection  of  coins  can  hardly  be  over-estimated. 

In  the  seventh  section  is  a  collection  of  cameos  and  engraved 
stones,  rings,  etc.,  of  which  more  than  two  hundred  are 
mounted  in  gold,  and  mostly  Etruscan.  Among  the  cameos  is 
a  head  of  the  Empress  Julia,  and  another  of  the  Emperor 
Pertinax,  found  at  Tusculum. 

The  eighth  collection  is  devoted  exclusively  to  glass  used  for 
domestic  and  ornamental  purposes.  A  glance  at  this  collection 
shows  that  the  ancient  Etruscans  understood  the  art  of  mak 
ing  and  coloring  glass  as  well  as  the  moderns,  if  not  better. 

The  ninth  section  embraces  the  finest  collection  of  antique 
frescoes,  mostly  from  Pompeii  and  Herculaneum,  to  be  seen 
out  of  Naples;  and  the  tenth  a  miscellaneous  collection  of 
curiosities  disinterred  exclusively  at  Cuma  and  Sorrento. 

Precious  and  unique  as  is  this  entire  collection,  I  have  al 
ready  said  that  it  is  the  section  of  antique  statuary  alone  that 
I  wish  to  bring  specially  to  the  notice  of  Americans— for  it 
has  seemed  to  furnish  almost  a  providential  opportunity  of 
laying  the  foundation  of  a  school  of  art  in  the  United  States, 
where  it  should  be  laid,  in  the  antique. 

Before  attempting  to  do  what  I  can  in  the  compass  of  a 
letter,  to  convey  some  idea  of  what  I  saw  in  the  course  of 
several  visits  which  I  made  to  this  statuary,  permit  me  to 
premise  that  very  satisfactory  photographic  impressions  have 
been  taken  of  some  of  the  more  valuable  pieces,  and  a  set  of 
them  has  been  transmitted  to  the  United  States  by  Cambridge 


202       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Livingston,  Esq.,  who  had  begun  to  interest  himself  actively 
in  the  effort  to  secure  the  collection  before  the  war  and  the 
exigencies  of  the  Papal  treasury  had  added  so  materially  to 
the  chances  of  success.  Those  impressions  no  doubt  are  or  will 
be  made  accessible  to  those  who  feel  interested  in  looking  at 
them. 

There  are  in  all  531  pieces  of  sculpture  proper,  to  which  must 
be  added  a  large  collection  of  Latin,  Greek  and  Etruscan  in 
scriptions  in  marble,  in  peperino,  and  in  altro  pietro,  of  more 
or  less  historical  and  archaeological  value,  and  numerous 
fragments  of  columns  and  of  sculpture,  which  would  be  of 
more  value  in  a  country  like  ours,  comparatively  destitute  of 
historic  memorials,  than  in  any  other. 

Of  the  531  pieces,  about  150  represent  divinities  and  heroic 
and  mythical  subjects;  over  100  represent  Eoman  Emperors 
and  members  of  their  families ;  about  200  are  sarcophagi,  bas- 
sorilievi,  urns,  vases,  candelabra,  tripods,  altars,  masks,  etc. 
The  remainder  are  busts  or  statues  of  literary  men  and  of  per 
sonages  as  yet  unknown,  of  the  time  of  the  Empire.  Of  the 
statues  forty-three  are  larger  than  life  and  thirty-eight  as 
large  as  life. 

I  enclose  a  complete  catalogue,  which  is  my  excuse  for  notic 
ing  more  at  length  only  such  subjects  as  will  best  serve  to  give 
a  general  notice,  rather  than  a  precise  knowledge  of  the  con 
tents  of  the  collection. 

Most  conspicuous  among  the  statues  in  the  mythological 
department  is  a  colossal  Jupiter  in  a  sitting  attitude,  grasping 
his  bolts,  with  a  mantle  over  his  knees,  originally,  it  is  pre 
sumed,  of  bronze,  but  replaced  with  stucco.  It  is  about  eleven 
feet  high,  five  feet  less  than  the  famous  Jupiter  of  Phidias,  so 
much  praised  by  Cicero.  It  was  found  on  the  borders  of  Lake 
Albanus,  near  the  villa  of  Domitian;  and  as  this  emperor  is 
known  to  have  paid  special  devotion  to  Jupiter,  it  is  probable 
that  this  statue  occupied  a  place  in  some  of  the  chapels  at 
tached  to  his  palace. 

There  are  too  in  this  collection  the  nine  Muses,  all  of  about 
the  same  size,  which  is  something  that  can  be  said  of  no  other 
collection.  Those  of  the  Vatican,  it  is  obvious  to  the  most 
superficial  observer,  are  of  the  most  unequal  height.  This 
uniformity  in  the  Muses  of  the  Campana  collection  is  the  more 


THE  CAMPANA  MARBLES          203 

remarkable  as  they  were  found  in  several  different  places— 
Thalia  and  Urania  at  Pozzuoli,  Polyhymnia  and  Clio  at  Tus- 
culum,  Euterpe  and  Terpsichore  at  Vera,  Melpomene  near  the 
forum  in  Rome,  Calliope  in  the  ruins  of  the  Circus  Maximus, 
Erato  in  the  vicinity  of  Arde. 

There  is  a  bust  of  the  Laocoon,  a  little  larger  than  life, 
which  evidently  has  belonged  to  some  large  group.  The 
friends  of  the  Marquis  insist  that  for  grandeur  and  force  of 
expression  it  is  superior  to  the  Laocoon  in  the  Vatican.  That 
is  unnecessary  if  not  excessive  praise.  The  head  in  the  Cam- 
pana  collection  is  a  very  wonderful  fragment  and  must  im 
press  all  who  look  upon  it  as  the  work  of  a  master  mind.  It 
was  found  at  Tusculum. 

Among  the  historical  pieces  in  this  museum  the  most  re 
markable  is  the  collection  of  Roman  Emperors,  which,  as  I 
have  already  stated,  is  the  most  complete  in  the  world;  and  I 
may  add  that  the  heads,  of  which  there  are  duplicates,  are  in 
much  more  perfect  preservation  than  those  of  any  other  gal 
lery.  It  is  one  of  the  most  serious  disappointments  which  one 
experiences  in  walking  through  the  Uffizi  Gallery  at  Florence 
and  the  Vatican  at  Rome  to  find  nearly  every  portrait  and  bust 
of  classic  celebrities  defaced  and  restored.  I  am  not  sure  that 
there  is  one  figure  of  any  historic  interest  that  does  not  wear  a 
false  nose.  After  frequent  and  pretty  careful  studies  of  the 
Campana  collection  I  feel  quite  confident  that  there  is  not  one 
of  these  statues  or  busts  whose  face  has  been  defaced.  It  is  in 
this  respect  as  well  as  in  point  of  numbers  that  this  collection 
of  the  Caesars  is  the  finest  in  the  world.  Among  other  things 
it  contains  three  or  four  statues  or  busts  of  Augustus,  as  many 
more  of  Livia  his  wife,  and  one  or  more  of  his  nephew  Marcel- 
lus,  three  of  Tiberius,  one  of  Drusus,  the  brother  of  Tiberius, 
of  Antonia  the  wife  and  Germanica  the  son  of  Drusus,  of 
Agrippina  the  wife  of  Germanicus  and  Drusus  the  son  of 
Tiberius,  several  taken  at  different  ages  of  Nero,  Caligula, 
Domitian,  Galba,  Otho,  Vitellius,  Titus,  Nerva,  Trajan, 
Hadrian,  and  of  Antinous  his  favorite,  Marcus  Aurelius,  Anto 
ninus  Pius,  Annius  and  Lucius  Verus,  Commodus  Pertinax 
Albinus,  Alexander  and  Septimius  Severus,  Caracalla,  Gaeta, 
Macrinus,  Heliogabalus,  Maximin,  Balbinus,  Papianus,  Gor- 


204       KETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

dian  the  Pious,  Gallienus,  Diocletian,  Constantine,  together 
with  the  wives  of  nearly  all,  many  taken  at  different  ages  and 
extremely  curious  for  the  various  styles  of  coiffure  in  which 
they  were  taken. 

There  is  however  a  department  of  this  collection  of  far 
greater  interest  to  the  modern  world  than  that  of  the  em 
perors;  I  refer  to  the  orators,  poets,  and  other  intellectual 
celebrities  of  antiquity,  among  which  I  may  properly  include 
the  somewhat  mythical  person  of  Homer,  though  Pliny  did 
say  that  "when  the  features  of  a  great  man  are  not  trans 
mitted  by  tradition,  they  are  invented,  as  was  the  case  with 
Homer."  Whether  there  ever  was  such  a  man  as  Homer  or 
not,  and  if  there  was,  whether  any  bust  of  him  was  ever  made 
or  preserved,  are  questions  about  which  there  will  always  be 
controversy  perhaps ;  but  such  controversy  will  cease  long  be 
fore  the  world  will  cease  to  feel  an  interest  in  knowing  what 
conception  the  ancients  had  of  the  personal  appearance  of  the 
greatest  of  epic  poets.  The  Campana  bust  was  found  at  Ostia. 

The  finest  head  of  Cicero  that  I  have  seen  anywhere  is  here 
—a  head  worthy  of  his  fame,  and  that  is  something  that  could 
not  be  said  of  the  popular  effigies  of  the  great  Eoman  orator 
which  ornamented  the  school  books  of  the  last  generation.  For 
several  hundred  years  Cicero  has  been  passing  for  one  of  the 
meanest-looking  men  that  ever  breathed.  Thanks  to  the  busts 
in  the  Vatican  and  in  the  Campana  Gallery,  his  great  fame  is 
no  longer  at  war  with  all  the  accepted  principles  of  physiog 
nomy.  Eogers  the  sculptor  has  already  received  an  order 
from  an  American  gentleman  for  a  copy  of  the  Campana 
Cicero. 

The  full-length,  semi-colossal  statues  of  Julius  Caesar,  Caius 
Marius  and  Sylla,,are  three  of  the  most  striking  figures  in  the 
Gallery  and  are  in  excellent  preservation.  Caesar  is  in  his 
sixty-fourth  year  or  thereabouts,  holds  in  his  right  hand, 
drawn  across  his  breast,  a  roll  of  papers— his  Commentaries, 
perchance,— and  wears  a  laurel  crown  upon  his  head,  a  custom 
of  his,  it  is  said,  to  conceal  his  baldness.  The  face  of  Sylla 
bears  an  extraordinary  resemblance  to  that  of  Frank  Blair  of 
Missouri.  It  was  found  on  Mount  Viminal  in  Borne.  The 


THE  CAMPANA  MARBLES          205 

Marius  was  found  at  Otriculum,  and  was  presented  to  the 
grandfather  of  the  Marquis  of  Campana  by  Pius  VI.  It  is 
perfectly  unique,  no  other  gallery  possessing  an  undisputed 
full-length  standing  figure  of  Sylla's  famous  but  unsuccessful 
rival. 

•          ••«••••• 

On  the  21st  of  June,  1859,  I  sent  the  Evening  Post  another 
letter  stating  that  "last  winter  the  price  upon  the  statuary 
was  about  five  hundred  thousand  dollars  and  the  entire  collec 
tion  might  be  had  for  one  million. "  This  letter  and  the 
grounds  for  those  estimates  appeared  in  the  Evening  Post  on 
the  9th  of  July  following. 

Soon  after  the  Evening  Post  containing  a  copy  of  my  letter 
reached  Eome,  I  received  the  following  from  Mr.  Wolff,  en 
closing  another  from  the  Marchese  de  Campana.  The  book  wa.s 
a  folio  containing  imperial  photographs  of  all  the  Caesars  in 
the  collection. 


EMTLIUS  WOLFF  TO  BIGELOW 

ROME,  30  September,  1859. 

132  QUATTKO  FONTEME. 

Dear  Sir: 

It  is  only  two  days  that  I  received  the  following  letter  from 
the  Marchioness  Campana,  which  having  been  sent  to  me  open 
on  purpose  to  acquaint  me  with  its  contents  I  have  read,  so 
that  I  scarcely  find  it  necessary  to  add  anything  to  the  object. 
Mr.  Campana  in  his  own  letter  recommends  the  greatest 
secrecy  of  the  affair,  being  afraid  that  his  powerful  enemies  in 
Eome  would  rather  frustrate  the  success  of  the  undertaking. 
He  is  convinced  that  letters  to  his  address  would  be  opened  by 
the  agents  of  the  Eoman  Government,  but  he  is  not  in  any  fear 
of  the  same  ill  treatment  with  regard  to  Naples,  where  any 
letter  might  freely  be  directed  to  him. 

I  read  the  two  articles  in  your  journal  with  great  interest, 
and  hope  that  your  endeavors  will  be  crowned  with  entire  suc 
cess.  I  really  consider  it  as  one  of  the  greatest  services  that 
you  could  render  to  your  country  to  introduce  there  the  taste 


206       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

for  classic  art,  and  I  doubt  that  ever  another  opportunity  of 
that  kind  might  present  herself  again. 

I  pray  you  to  present  my  best  respects  to  Mrs.  Bigelow  and 
trusting  that  I  shall  have  the  pleasure  to  see  you  again  in 
Eome  in  the  case  that  your  undertaking  should  be  carried  into 
effect,  I  remain, 

Dear  Sir, 

Yours  most  truly 


MARCHESE  DE  CAMPANA  TO  BIGELOW 

NAPLES,  Sept.  22nd,  1859. 
Sir: 

I  take  the  liberty  of  addressing  you  these  lines,  in  reply 
to  yr.  interesting  letter,  date  of  July  27th,  forwarded  to  us 
by  Mre.  Campana's  old  and  valued  friend,  Mr.  Wolff.  Your 
letter  gave  us  the  greatest  pleasure,  and  we  thank  you  greatly 
for  the  interest  you.  have  taken  in  our  misfortunes  and  the 
wrongs  received  by  us  from  the  Papal  Gov't.  I  see  from  yr. 
letter,  that  thanks  to  yr.  influence  &  that  of  the  paper  Eve. 
Post,  of  which  you  are  the  proprietor,  that  in  America  the 
real  importance  of  the  Museum  is  known,  &  that  yr.  country 
men  have  an  idea  &  desire  of  purchasing  it.  It  is,  therefore, 
well  that  you  should  be  acquainted  with  the  particulars  as  to 
how  the  purchase  of  the  museum  by  the  Papal  Government 
stands,  and  on  this  subject  therefore  I  venture  to  intrude  on 
you  with  this  letter. 

It  is  perfectly  true  that  the  Pontifical  Government,  taking 
advantage  of  the  position  and  captivity  of  their  victim,  chose  to 
make  him  sign  a  contract  by  which  they  hoped  to  save  their 
own  dignity  &  justify  the  '  '  faux  pas '  '  they  had  made,  but  on 
the  other  hand,  the  contract  is  such,  (worthy  of  their  past 
conduct),  that  Mre.  Campana  can  when  it  suits  him  so  to  do, 
attack  it  and  have  it  destroyed  as  void,  &  therefore  tho'  the 
museum  has  been  purchased  by  the  P.  Government,  Mre.  C. 
when  he  has  negotiated  and  agreed  on  the  price  with  a  foreign 
gov't  or  nation,  will  be  able  to  vindicate  his  right,  and  unmask 
the  bad  faith  and  abuse  of  position  of  the  P.  Gov't. 


THE  CAMPANA  MARBLES          207 

To  this  I  may  add,  that  the  influences  were  different  under 
which  the  contract  was  made.  On  one  hand  was  the  Pope,  who 
from  amour  propre  desired  to  assure  the  museum  and  his 
Capital  &  thus  silence  the  public  voice  which  loudly  exclaimed 
against  such  artistical  treasures  being  lost  to  Eome.  On  the 
other  side  was  the  Card.  Secretary  of  State,  who  in  his  bitter, 
implacable  and  inexplicable  enmity  to  Mre.  Campana,  would 
gladly  have  scattered  and  destroyed  the  museum,  the  exis 
tence  of  which  is  a  living  monument  of  the  bad  faith  and 
iniquity  of  himself  &  the  other  ministers,  who  together  with 
the  Tribunals  are  the  servile  tools  of  the  Minister  of  State,  but 
being  unable  to  prevent  that  on  which  the  Sovereign  was  bent, 
he  spoilt  the  execution  of  the  Pope's  desire,  &  penned  the  most 
infamous  contract  that  malignity  of  man  ever  imagined.  These 
opposite  sentiments  still  exist,  &  most  gladly  would  the  Min 
ister,  on  the  plea  of  financial  difficulties,  obtain  from  the  Pope 
his  consent  to  the  sale  of  the  museum ;  but  Mre.  Campana  re 
quires  not  their  co-operation,  as  he  could  legally  obtain  the 
above,  but  for  which  it  is  necessary  to  have  a  purchaser  of  the 
museum.  You  thus  see  that  whilst  the  Papal  Gov't  have 
nominally  bought  the  museum,  this  need  not  alarm  any  parties 
desirous  of  purchasing  it;  but  as  the  P.  Gov't  are  capable  of 
any  iniquity,  it  would  be  well  to  conduct  the  negotiations  with 
reserve,  treating  directly  with  Mre.  C.,  who-  would  facilitate 
to  the  commissioners  the  view  of  the  museum,  without  the 
"  enemy "  being  acquainted  on  the  subject,  &  when  the  terms 
have  been  agreed  on,  he  would  himself  obtain  the  consent  of 
the  P.  Gov't,  or  on  their  refusal,  have  the  contract  legally 
annulled,  but  to  do  which  it  is  necessary  a  purchaser  should  be 
found ;  &  in  carrying  out  yr.  plans,  not  only  you  would  enrich 
yr.  country  with  these  treasures  of  art,  but  you  would  have 
contributed  to  the  vindication  of  the  rights  of  the  oppressed. 
In  writing  to  Mr.  Wolff,  recollect  that  at  Eome  letters  are 
opened  at  the  post,  &  that  it  would  be  better  to  adopt  some 
other  course.  To  me  you  can  write  freely,  addressing  simply 
"a  Naples."  Mre.  C.  begs  you  to  accept  his  kind  regards,  and 
pray  make  my  compliments  to  Mrs.  Bigelow.  Believe  me  with 
much  respect, 

Yr.  Ob'd't  Serv't 


208        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 


MAECHESE  CAMPANA  TO  BIGELOW 

The  Marehese  Campana  presents  her  compliments  to  Mr. 
Bigelow  and  begs  to  enclose  an  article  from  the  Morning  Post 
(and  which  she  requests  may  be  returned  as  soon  as  copied), 
and  a  copy  of  the  defence,  but  the  summary  of  which  is  not  to 
be  had,  as  not  a  single  copy  remains.  She  begs  to  offer  for  Mr. 
Bigelow's  acceptance,  the  accompanying  work  on  the  statues, 
and  which  is  considered  a  most  interesting  and  valuable  book 
and  is  not  in  commerce;  but  she  and  the  Marquis  are  most 
happy  to  offer  it  to  Mr.  Bigelow,  and  hope  that  in  return  he 
will,  whenever  the  opportunity  presents  itself,  endeavor  to 
make  known  the  worth  of  the  case.  The  Marchese  begs  to 
offer  her  compliments  to  Mrs.  Bigelow,  whose  acquaintance 
she  hopes  to  have  the  pleasure  of  making  at  some  future 
period. 

EOME,  April  8, 1859. 


Mr.  Bryant  wrote  me  in  reply  that  the  amount  demanded 
was  so  far  beyond  the  means  of  the  museum's  resources  as  to 
discourage  any  hope  of  its  acquisition  of  the  collection. 

I  do  not  at  this  moment  remember  the  price  demanded.  It 
did  not  seem  to  me  to  be  a  large  one,  but  millionaires  were  not 
as  plentiful  in  those  days  in  New  York  as  at  present.  The 
money  to-day  could  be  raised  in  twenty- four  hours  to  purchase 
such  a  collection,  which  would  have  been  then,  and  have  re 
mained  to  this  day,  and  perhaps  for  all  time,  the  most  unique  if 
not  the  most  distinguishing  feature  of  the  Metropolitan  Mu 
seum  of  Art.  Not  long  after  I  left  Eome,  the  collection  was 
sold,  part  to  the  Eussian  Government,  and  part  to  the  Imperial 
Government  of  France.  This  separation  was  the  more  unfor 
tunate  as  it  was  to  all  human  vision  irreparable. 

We  reached  Naples  early  in  April.  Our  time  there,  of  course, 
was  mostly  consumed  in  seeing  the  sights ;  and  I  doubt  if  there 


DE  BAUSSET'S  "HISTOIRE  DE  FENELON"       209 

is  any  city  in  the  world  of  its  population  which  has  so  much  to 
show  that  is  more  worthy  of  a  pilgrimage  to  visit.  The  Museo 
Borbonico,  the  never  monotonous  performances  of  Vesuvius 
and  the  ruins  of  the  cities  it  has  buried,  the  Isle  of  Capri,  the 
tomb  of  Virgil— these  alone  are  sufficient  to  make  of  Naples  a 
pilgrim's  shrine. 

The  event  of  our  visit  there  which  had  most  sequence  with 
me  was  finding  at  an  old  book-stall  a  copy  of  De  Bausset's 
"Histoire  de  Fenelon"  in  three  volumes— the  only  biography 
of  Fenelon  that  deserves  the  name,  though  far  from  being 
such  a  biography  as  would  be  written  now  by  a  Protestant,  or 
probably  by  any  eminent  writer  even  of  the  Latin  Church. 
De  Bausset  was  a  cardinal,  and  wrote,  of  course,  subject  to  all 
the  restrictions  which  his  relations  to  the  church  imposed  in 
his  day.  I  found  it,  nevertheless,  a  most  interesting  book.  I 
wondered  that  it  had  not  been  translated,  because  I  had  never 
met  with  a  copy.  I  learned,  however,  a  few  months  later  at 
the  British  Museum,  that  it  had  been  translated,  and  after  a 
good  deal  of  delay  they  succeeded  in  bringing  me  their  copy. 
It  was  not  on  their  catalogues,  but  in  a  pile  of  books  which  had 
never  yet  been  made  accessible  to  the  public,  so  that  the  book 
was  practically  unknown  to  the  English-reading  people. 

The  approaching  confinement  of  my  wife  compelled  us 
reluctantly  to  abridge  our  stay  in  Naples,  and  on  the  30th  of 
April  I  secured  tickets  on  one  of  the  Messaggiera  Imperiale 
steamers  for  Marseilles,  to  sail  the  evening  of  the  following 
day. 

I  cannot  take  final  leave  of  Naples  without  noting  what  Dr. 
Franklin  would  have  called  an  erratum— indeed,  in  my  judg 
ment  a  serious  erratum,  which  a  day  or  two  before  I  sailed  I 
took  the  first  step— the  step  that  costs— to  correct. 

I  felt  depressed  by  the  reflection  that  I  had  made  no  notes, 
except  in  two  or  three  letters  to  the  Evening  Post,  of  my  first 
impressions  of  Italy,  already  realizing  sadly  that  we  can  never 
have  first  impressions  a  second  time.  I  determined  I  would 
no  longer  have  this  neglect  to  reproach  myself  with,  and  went 
into  a  stationer's  shop  and  bought  a  small  quarto  blank  book 
bound  in  parchment,  in  which  I  commenced  to  set  down  what 
ever  further  observations  I  might  make  in  my  wanderings  that 
I  might  think  it  would  sometime  be  a  pleasure  to  me  to  recall. 


210       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

It  was  a  happy  though  tardy  inspiration,  and  has  yielded  many 
satisfactory  results  already.  Since  that  time  I  have  endeav 
ored  to  make  notes  of  what  seemed  to  be  the  more  important 
events  of  my  life,  as  well  as  such  as  I  thought  might  specially 
interest  my  descendants. 

It  has  been  a  source  of  constant  and  profound  regret  to  me 
ever  since  I  left  Italy  that  I  had  not  had  this  inspiration  before 
I  landed  in  Europe. 

The  United  States  steamer  W abash  had  arrived  from  Leg 
horn  on  the  29th,  and  my  wife  and  I  went  on  board  to  pay  our 
respects  to  Bear-Admiral  La  Valette.  Captain  Baron  was 
with  them.  They  had  been  on  shore,  where  they  had  learned 
that  15,000  French  troops  had  landed  at  Genoa  on  the  27th, 
that  10,000  and  upward  were  on  their  way  to  Sardinia  through 
Savoy,  that  40,000  had  been  ordered  to  Toulon  and  prepara 
tions  were  making  at  Spezzia  to  receive  30,000  immediately, 
and  that  General  Marmora  was  hourly  expecting  an  attack 
from  the  Austrians. 

The  time  we  had  selected  for  our  journey  back  to  Paris  was 
unfortunate,  inasmuch  as  the  news  we  had  received  had 
created  such  a  panic  in  Italy  that  all  the  transports  out  of  the 
country  were  crowded  to  suffocation.  We  had  on  our  steamer, 
built  to  accommodate  less  than  200,  some  350  passengers.  A 
large  proportion  of  them,  refugees  from  Eome,  joined  us  at 
Civita  Vecchia. 

Only  a  small  portion  of  the  passengers  could  be  provided 
with  rooms  or  beds  to  sleep  in.  The  decks  were  covered  with 
women  and  children,  as  was  the  cabin  floor.  A  heavy  storm  of 
rain  in  the  night  made  most  of  the  passengers  sick,  and  the 
condition  of  the  deck  when  I  went  up  in  the  morning*  was,  as 
may  readily  be  supposed,  indescribably  disgusting. 

Among  the  passengers  who  came  on  board  at  Civita 
Vecchia  was  our  friend  and  neighbor  from  Garrisons,  Harry 
Livingston  and  his  wife.  She  had  been  ill  from  Eoman  fever, 
and  of  course  I  gave  up  my  room  to  her,  and  was  fortunate 
enough  to  secure  a  mattress  and  a  blanket,  with  the  privilege 
of  laying  it  upon  one  of  the  dining-room  tables,  and  myself 
upon  it. 

On  landing  at  Marseilles  we  were  startled  by  reading  Na 
poleon's  declaration  of  war  posted  about  the  streets.  I 
thought  it  a  very  skilful  statement  of  the  reasons  for  the 


EMPEROR  LEAVES  FOR  AUSTRO-ITALIAN  WAR  211 

course  he  had  taken.  In  it  he  announced  his  intention  to  take 
the  field  himself.  The  impression  prevailed  there  that  he  would 
start  the  following  day.  It  was  also  reported  that  Lord  Derby 
had  been  defeated  in  his  election  to  the  new  Parliament,  and 
that  Palmerston  had  been  successful,  portending,  as  it  was 
supposed,  a  less  permanent  neutrality  for  England  than  had 
been  anticipated.  We  also  learned  that  the  Austrian  army 
had  crossed  the  Ticino  on  the  26th. 

We  reached  Paris  on  the  7th  of  May,  and  were  soon  estab 
lished  at  the  pension  of  Mesdames  Sillick  and  Kilson,  No.  29 
Rue  de  Courcelle,  subsequently  purchased  by  the  Saxon  Gov 
ernment  for  its  legation,  where  we  had  in  advance  secured 
rooms. 

The  Emperor  left  Paris  at  six  o  'clock  on  Tuesday,  the  10th, 
for  the  seat  of  war.  The  Empress  accompanied  him  a  short 
distance,  and  was  observed  to  sob  and  wipe  her  eyes  all  the 
way  to  the  depot.  Her  grief,  however,  did  not  prevent  her 
enjoying  a  drive  that  afternoon  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  where 
I  met  her  as  I  was  driving  with  Mr.  Phalen.  Our  new  home 
was  almost  immediately  opposite  the  palace  of  the  Emperor's 
cousin,  la  Princesse  Mathilde. 

On  the  10th  of  April  I  called  upon  the  Hon.  John  Y.  Mason, 
our  Minister  in  Paris,  with  Mr.  Angel,  at  that  time  our  Min 
ister  to  Sweden,  who  presented  me  to  the  Minister,  whom  I 
had  never  before  seen,  though  as  a  journalist  I  had  had  fre 
quent  occasion  to  speak  of  him,  in  connection  with  the  Ostend 
Conference  and  other  matters,  in  language  not  always  compli 
mentary.  I  found  a  pleasing,  good-natured,  hale-looking  old 
gentleman,  who  enjoyed  life,  told  stories  very  well,  though 
they  did  "something  smack  and  something  grow  to,"  and 
was  reputed  to  play  a  good  if  not  always  a  lucrative  game  of 
whist. 

Our  conversation  naturally  turned  upon  the  political  situa 
tion  in  France.  In  the  course  of  it  he  told  us  that  France  and 
Eussia  made  peace  in  1856  at  the  expense  of,  or,  to  use  his 
own  phrase,  "to  kick"  John  Bull.  The  agent  between  the  two 
emperors  was  Seebach,  the  Minister  of  Saxony,  the  Secretary 
of  the  Paris  conferences,  the  son-in-law  of  Nesselrode,  and  the 
first  to  occupy  the  house  in  which  I  was  then  residing,  which 
he  converted  into  his  legation. 

Seebach  had  professed  an  irrepressible  desire  to  go  and  see 


212        RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

his  father-in-law  at  St.  Petersburg.  He  obtained  leave,  went, 
and  brought  back  Russia's  assent  to  the  proposition  which  had 
emanated  from  Napoleon,  which  was  ultimately  accepted.  Na 
poleon  made  England  believe  that  the  proposition  emanated 
from  Austria  and  would'  be  indignantly  rejected  by  Russia. 
Lord  Clarendon  said  of  course  Russia  would  decline,  but  if 
Napoleon  had  no  objection,  his  Government  had  none.  Hiibe- 
ner,  the  Austrian  Minister,  read  this  news  eighteen  hours  in 
advance  of  any  one  in  Paris.  He  shut  himself  up  and  would 
neither  see  nor  be  seen  of  any  one  till  the  news  had  had  time  to 
reach  Paris  in  the  regular  way.  He  then  repaired  to  the 
Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  Walewsld,  who  as  yet  had  not 
heard  the  news,  and  told  him  of  it.  Walewski  turned  ashy 
pale  with  indignation  and  alarm.  He  had  been  speculating 
heavily  for  a  fall  in  the  funds,  presuming  that  no  peace  was 
near.  "Napoleon  was  obliged  to  pay  him,"  said  Mason, 
"600,000  francs  out  of  his  own  pocket  to  indemnify  him  for  his 
losses  and  restore  his  good  nature." 

Mason  also  said  that  Drouyn  de  Lhuys  told  him,  when  asked 
if  there  were  any  truth  in  the  report  that  he  was  to  take  the 
portfolio  of  Foreign  Affairs,  "No,  I  will  never  consent  to 
serve  any  sovereign  as  Minister  if  I  cannot  know  what  is  going 
on  in  my  own  department."  This,  like  all  of  Mason 's  stories, 
was  a  good  one :  how  much  of  it  was  true  I  neither  knew  nor 
cared;  neither  did  he,  I  suspect.  Those  who  remember  the 
later  stages  of  the  public  career  of  Drouyn  de  Lhuys,  if 
familiar  with  Shakespeare,  may  be  reminded  by  this  story  of 
Benedick's  oaths  to  die  a  bachelor. 

On  the  llth  of  June  the  news  reached  us  of  the  death  of 
Dr.  Bailey,  the  editor  of  the  National  Era,  the  only  anti- 
slavery  paper  then  published  on  any  of  the  slave  territory 
of  the  United  States,  and  through  the  columns  of  which 
Mrs.  Stowe's  famous  story  of  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  was 
first  given  to  the  world.  The  doctor  died  on  board  the 
Arago,  the  fourth  or  fifth  day  out  from  New  York,  while  on 
his  way  to  Europe  in  quest  of  health.  He  was  so  feeble  before 
he  left  Washington  that  he  had  asked  Mr.  Thayer,  one  of  my 
staff  on  the  Evening  Post,  to  engage  lodgings  for  him  in  New 
York  on  the  first  floor  while  waiting  for  the  steamer.  He  was 
a  good  man  and  a  useful  man,  without  genius  or  any  particular 
talent.  It  seemed  hard  that  he  should  be  called  away  just  as 


RIDE  WITH  CHARLES  SUMNER  IN  PARIS      213 

he  was  so  near  witnessing  the  triumph  of  the  noble  cause  to 
which  he  had  devoted  the  best  energies  of  his  life.  However, 
he  had  no  great  reason  to  repine  at  the  time  selected  for  his 
departure,  for  he  had  been  spared  to  work  effectively  for  the 
cause  of  Freedom  through  its  crises  and  agony,  and,  like 
Moses,  was  permitted  to  point  out  the  Promised  Land  to  his 
followers,  if  not  to  lead  them  into  it. 

Charles  Sumner  was  at  this  time  in  Paris,  under  treatment 
by  Dr.  Sicard  for  the  bruises  received,  while  sitting  in  his  seat 
in  the  Senate,  from  a  bludgeon  in  the  hands  of  a  member  of 
Congress  from  South  Carolina  by  the  name  of  Brooks.  I  saw 
him  frequently  and  enjoyed  very  much  his  conversation  about 
the  literary  interests  and  associations  of  Paris,  which  he  was 
probably  as  familiar  with  as  any  foreigner  ever  was.  On  the 
10th  of  June  he  rode  with  me  to  the  cemetery  of  the  Eue  Pic- 
pus  to  see  the  place  where  repose  the  remains  of  the  ancestors 
of  Lafayette  and  of  many  other  aristocratic  victims  of  the 
Eevolution  of  1789.  The  privilege  of  a  burial  in  this  cemetery 
belongs  still  and  only  to  the  descendants  of  the  families  in 
terred  there,  and  it  is  the  only  cemetery  inside  of  Paris  to 
which  the  privilege  of  intermural  burial  is  accorded,  for  the 
following  reason  given  to  Sumner,  as  he  said,  by  De  Tocque- 
ville : 

"Between  three  and  four  hundred  victims  of  the  guillotine 
in  the  Eevolution  of  1789  were  thrown  promiscuously  in  a  pile 
upon  the  site  of  this  cemetery.  Some  of  the  victims  were  iden 
tified  by  the  sorrowing  members  of  their  families,  and  a  law 
was  passed  by  the  Government  after  the  Eestoration  that  that 
pie'ce  of  ground  should  be  converted  into  a  permanent  burial- 
place  for  all  the  descendants  of  the  families  any  of  whose 
members  had  been  deposited  there. "  Most  of  the  noble  fam 
ilies  of  France  were  there  represented,  among  them  the  Noail- 
les,  the  Mothes,  the  Montmorencys,  the  Choiseuls,  the  Eohans, 
and  the  grandfather  of  De  Tocqueville. 

I  asked  if  De  Tocqueville  himself  had  been  buried  there.  He 
said  not,  that  he  believed  that  he  had  requested  to  be  laid  in 
the  churchyard  of  the  parish  where  he  lived  near  Cherbourg. 
Such  was  the  fact. 

Sumner  also  showed  me  the  house  in  which  Mme.  de  Sevigne 
lived,  where  Marguerite  de  Valois  spent  the  last  week  she  was 
in  Paris,  where  Mirabeau  died,  and  the  Sorbonne,  which  re- 


214       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

minded  him  that  he  had  attended  a  lecture  by  St.  Marc  Girar- 
din  a  day  or  two  previous,  and  his  subject  was  the  Fables  of 
La  Fontaine.  The  speaker  gave  an  account  of  the  Fable  of  the 
Babbit  and  the  Lion,  the  despot  of  the  forest,  who  ordered  that 
all  animals  with  horns  should  have  their  heads  cut  off.  The 
Kabbit,  suspecting  from  their  shadows  that  his  ears  were  long 
enough  to  be  taken  for  horns  by  his  enemies,  decamped  with 
the  other  horned  animals. 

Apropos  of  this  fable,  the  speaker  said  there  was  once  a 
speaker  of  Parliament  who  said  that  if  he  were  accused  of 
carrying  off  the  towers  of  Notre  Dame  on  his  shoulders  he 
would  not  stop  to  defend  himself  but  would  take  refuge  in 
flight.  This  incident  is  only  worth  repeating  as  an  illustration 
of  the  way  in  which  the  literary  talent  of  France  in  those  days 
was  enabled  and  only  enabled  to  defend  the  people's  rights  in 
spite  of  an  enslaved  press  and  a  despotic  sovereign. 

The  following  memoranda  I  copy  from  my  diary : 

Sunday,  June  19. 

Last  week  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  Sorbonne  and 
some  of  its  lecturers.  I  heard  Beaudrillart  on  the  Law  of 
Nations,  A.  Frank  on  the  same,  though  he  discoursed  mainly 
upon  the  freedom  of  religious  worship,  Philarete  Chasles,  who 
is  something  of  a  coxcomb,  St.  Marc  Girardin  and  Laboulaye. 
Girardin  I  enjoyed  very  much.  Sumner  accompanied  me 
there.  The  subject  of  his  course  is  French  Poesy  apropos  of 
La  Fontaine.  I  followed  him  tolerably  well,  and  was  gratified 
to  find  myself  capable  of  understanding  the  French  when 
spoken  so  rapidly.  Laboulaye 's  subject  is  ' l  Comparative 
Legislation, "  but  he  occupied  himself  with  the  dullest  possible 
narrative  of  the  lives  and  public  career  of  the  immediate 
descendants  of  Clovis.  The  genealogy  of  an  American  savage 
could  not  have  been  a  less  profitable  study  for  me. 

Theodore  Parker  arrived  in  Paris  on  Sunday  last.  He  told 
Sumner  he  coughed  more  than  when  he  left  home,  and  has  no 
hope  of  recovery  or  even  of  returning  to  his  native  land.  He 
has  had  seven  brothers  and  sisters  (I  think  that  was  the  num 
ber  he  mentioned)  all  of  whom  died  of  consumption  between 
the  ages  of  forty  and  fifty,  and  Theodore  is  now  forty-seven. 
He  has  been  invited  by  Delaure— the  Swiss  naturalist  who 


A.D.  1780 


Beranger 


A.D.  1857 


BERENGER  AND  HIS  FRIEND  215 

came  to  America  with  Agassiz,  quarrelled  with  and  left  him— 
to  come  and  stay  with  him  in  one  of  three  houses  he  owns  there 
and  will  place  at  his  disposal.  By  the  death  of  a  sister-in-law 
who  inherited  a  fortune  of  some  10,000-f  ranc  rew£es  which  went 
to  her  husband,  and  by  his  death  subsequently  to  M.  Delaure, 
the  latter  is  now  a  rich  man  for  Neuf chatel,  and  promises  to  do 
his  best  to  make  Mr.  Parker  comfortable  and  cure  him  if  pos 
sible.  He  also  promises  to  botanize,  geologize  and  philosophize 
with  him  as  much  as  will  be  agreeable  to  his  invalid  guest. 
Mr.  Parker  left  this  morning,  as  I  learned  to  my  cost  on  going 
to  call  on  him. 

This  week  I  may  be  said  to  have  commenced  my  acquain 
tance  with  Berenger.  I  met  with  a  pocket  edition  of  all  his 
works,  very  complete  (Perrotin's) ,  and  bought  it  for  five  francs. 
It  includes  his  Autobiography,  which  I  enjoyed  extremely.  I 
have  found  in  his  early  life  a  curious  confirmation  of  my  con 
viction  that,  much  as  we  worry  about  our  children,  their 
destiny  is  not  more,  if  so  much,  affected  as  our  own  by  what  we 
do  for  them.  His  grandfather  was  a  poor  tailor  in  the  Eue 
Mont  Orgeuil.  His  father  was  bookkeeper  in  a  grocery-store 
in  the  same  street,  where  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  the 
tailor's  daughter,  who  then  went  daily  to  sew  in  a  magasin  des 
modes  and  who  was  destined  to  be  the  mother  of  Berenger. 
They  married  and  separated  at  the  end  of  six  months,  the 
father  to  go  to  work  in  Belgium  and  the  mother  to  continue  her 
trade  of  modiste.  As  soon  as  he  was  born  he  was  sent  to  nurse 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Auxerre,  where  he  remained  nine 
years,  the  first  three  without  being  ever  asked  for  by  any  one, 
in  charge  of  a  nurse  whose  milk  gave  out  very  soon  and  who 
fed  him  on  bread  saturated  in  wine.  At  nine  years  of  age  he 
was  sent  to  school  in  the  Faubourg  St.  Antoine,  where  he  saw 
the  taking  of  the  Bastille,  which  was  about  all  the  instruction 
he  says  that  he  received.  "  I  do  not  recollect, ' '  he  says,  *  '  their 
giving  me  a  single  lesson  in  reading  or  writing. ' ' 

In  the  fall  of  1789  and  in  his  tenth  year,  his  father,  whom  he 
never  saw  but  three  or  four  times,  tired  of  paying  his  modique 
pension,  though  then  become  notaire  at  Dural,  sent  Berenger, 
in  charge  of  an  old  woman,  his  cousin,  to  Peronne  with  a  letter 
recommending  him  to  the  care  of  a  maiden  sister  who  kept  the 
little  Auberge  PEpic  Eoyale  in  that  village.  Berenger  had 


216        RETKOSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

never  seen  her.  She  received  him  with  hesitation,  read  the 
letter,  and  then  said:  "It  is  impossible  for  me  to  take  care  of 
this  boy."  Berenger  proceeds:  "The  moment  is  present  with 
me  now.  My  grandfather  paralyzed  and  retired  from  business 
on  an  income  too  limited  to  support  me  longer,  my  father 
declined  the  burden,  and  my  mother  cared  nothing  about  me. ' ' 
(His  mother  had  gone  previously  to  live  by  herself  near  the 
Temple,  leaving  Berenger  with  his  grandparents.)  "I  was 
but  nine  years  and  a  half  old,  but  I  felt  myself  repelled  by  all. 
What  was  to  become  of  me?  Such  scenes  ripen  rapidly  the 
reason  of  such  as  are  born  with  any."  ("De  pareilles  scenes 
murirent  vite  la  raison  chez  ceux  qui  sont  nes  pour  en  avoir  un 
peu.")  He  then  adds  that  he  was  a  handsome  child,  and, 
without  wishing  to  diminish  the  merit  of  his  consignee's  hos 
pitality,  he  says  he  saw  her  look  at  him  through  a  corner  of 
her  eye,  and  afterwards,  moved  and  softened,  she  pressed  him 
in  her  arms  and  said,  with  tears  in  her  eyes,  "Poor  outcast,  I 
will  be  a  mother  to  you."  Berenger  adds  that  never  was  a 
promise  better  kept.  This  good  woman,  upon  whom  he  passes 
a  fervent  eulogium  and  from  whom  he  received  an  education 
and  an  excellent  moral  training,  to  say  nothing  of  a  com 
fortable  home,  died  in  her  eighty-sixth  year,  after  having  dic 
tated  her  own  epitaph :  ' '  Jamais  elle  ne  f ut  mere  et  pourtant 
elle  a  laisse  des  enfants  qui  la  pleurent."1  "Son  neveu  le 
poete  n'eut  pas  trouve  mieux  a  dire."2 

Thus  born  in  poverty,  of  parents  unfaithful  alike  to  each 
other  and  to  him ;  left  to  the  untried  guardianship  of  a  country 
nurse  for  many  years ;  abandoned  finally  by  both  his  parents, 
and  sent,  a  poor  outcast,  to  a  relation  whom  he  had  never  seen 
and  who  knew  nothing  of  either  of  his  parents  to  awaken  the 
least  interest  in  or  sympathy  for  him,  he  arrives  by  the  most 
tortuous  and  apparently  the  most  perilous  paths  in  a  home 
more  desirable  in  every  respect  than  he  could  possibly  have 
hoped  for  had  his  parents  been  faithful  to  each  other  and 
entertained  for  him  the  ordinary  allowance  of  parental  affec 
tion.  It  would  seem  as  if  Providence  had  deliberately  hard 
ened  the  hearts  of  the  parents  and  reduced  the  resources  of  the 
kind  old  grandfather,  that  the  child  might  be  led  into  the  wil 
derness,  destitute  of  home,  friends,  and  hope,  there  to  find  them 

1  "She  was  never  a  mother,  yet  she  left  children  who  weep  for  her," 
'"Her  nephew  the  poet  could  have  said  nothing  better." 


BOSSUET  AND  CATHEDRAL  OF  ST.  STEPHEN    217 

all,  and  with  them  an  object  worthy  of  absorbing  all  his  young 
affections  and  capable  of  turning  them  to  the  best  account. 

Though  the  resources  of  Providence  are  inexhaustible,  and 
therefore  some  other  way  might  perhaps  have  been  found  to 
rear  young  Berenger  as  well  or  better  than  he  was  reared 
without  alienating  him  from  his  family,  or  rather  his  family 
from  him,  yet  it  is  very  clear  that  he  had  no  relative  in  the 
world  who,  if  he  or  she  could  have  had  things  occur  according 
to  their  best  and  most  cherished  plans,  could  have  provided 
for  this  child  so  advantageously  as  he  was  provided  for  by 
Providence.1 

Two  lines  of  Berenger 's  Autobiography  convinced  me  that 
he  was  both  a  wiser  and  a  better  man  than  I  had  supposed  him 
before  I  came  to  read  his  history.  He  was  offered  his  choice 
of  two  positions  in  the  Universite  Imperiale,  one  worth  2000 
francs  and  the  other  worth  3000  francs.  He  accepted  the  less 
remunerative  because  he  said  it  gave  but  little  occupation  to 
the  mind,  and  therefore  he  thought  it  "mieux  convenir  a  un 
rhymeur."  But  he  adds:  "C'etait  un  tort,  car  avec  3000 
francs  j  'aurais  ete  plus  utile  aux  miens ;  mais  je  ne  savais  pas 
encore  faire  passer  completement  mes  devoirs  avant  mes 
gouts. ' ' 2  That  is  a  remark  not  likely  to  occur  to  a  man  who 
had  not  progressed  a  long  way  toward  repairing  the  deficiency 
of  which  he  complains. 

On  Tuesday,  the  21st  of  June,  my  wife  presented  me,  about 
7.30  in  the  morning,  with  a  second  daughter.  The  young  lady 
announced  herself  with  a  yell,  and  once  or  twice  in  the  course 
of  the  day  coughed.  At  the  time  of  her  birth  her  mother  was 
herself  slowly  recovering  from  the  whooping-cough,  which  it 
appeared  she  had  shared  with  the  child.  To  the  early  and 
severe  exercise  which  the  daughter's  youthful  lungs  then  re 
ceived,  I  have  always  been  disposed  to  attribute  the  fine  chest 
and  voice  which  were  thus  developed  in  her. 

The  Fourth  of  July  I  spent  in  visiting  Meaux,  the  cathedral 
of  St.  Stephen,  and  other  objects  associated  with  the  resi- 

1  See  article  written  by  me  circa  July  1,  1859,  on  the  Autobiography  of 
Berenger,  in  the  Evening  Post. 

2  "That  was  a  mistake,  for  with  3000  francs  [$600]  I  could  have  been  more 
useful  to  my  people;  but  I  did  not  yet  know  how  to  completely  subordinate 
my  inclinations  to  my  duties." 


218       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

dence,  name  and  fame  of  Bossuet.  The  cathedral  was  com 
menced  in  the  twelfth  century  and  is  a  very  fine  specimen  of 
Gothic  architecture.  The  place  where  the  remains  of  this 
famous  prelate  were  found  in  November,  1854,  was  exhibited 
to  me,  and  a  monument  erected  by  the  department  to  his  mem 
ory  in  1820,  which  I  thought  a  rather  insipid  affair.  I  also 
visited  the  cabinet  d' Etude  of  Bossuet,  and  the  yew  walk 
where  he  found  the  seclusion  and  quiet  he  required  for  the 
prodigious  amount  of  literary  as  well  as  professional  work  he 
managed  to  execute. 

On  my  way  from  the  cathedral  I  stepped  into  a  book-store 
to  see  what  sort  of  books  the  market  of  Meaux  demanded,  and 
among  other  things  I  succeeded  in  purchasing  an  autograph 
letter  and  an  autograph  sermon  by  Bossuet  himself.  The 
latter  I  considered  something  of  a  prize,  as  it  was  Bossuet 's 
habit  to  speak  mostly  from  notes  and  with  great  freedom  of 
amplification.  A  complete  sermon,  therefore,  in  his  handwrit 
ing  is  a  great  rarity.  I  paid  for  the  sermon  175  francs,  and  35 
francs  for  the  letter. 

On  my  return  to  the  United  States  I  presented  the 
autograph  sermon  of  Bossuet  to  Archbishop  Hughes  in  ac 
knowledgment  of  his  courtesy  in  sending  me,  when  I  was  about 
leaving  New  York,  a  letter  of  introduction  to  all  the  prelates 
of  his  communion  whom  I  might  wish  to  meet. 

An  English  expert,  when  I  told  him  of  my  purchasej  said 
that  an  autograph  sermon  of  Bossuet  was  so  rare  that  it  would 
be  worth  from  two  to  three  thousand  francs.  I  fear  my  friend 
the  archbishop  hardly  valued  it  at  either  of  those  figures,  for 
Bossuet 's  battle  for  the  Gallican  Church  was  not  in  good  odor 
at  Rome,  of  which  the  Jesuits  had  recently  given  evidence. 

In  looking  over  an  account  of  the  exhumation  of  Bossuet  in 
1854,  which  I  picked  up  at  the  book-shop,  I  .found  it  stated  that 
his  once  white  hair  had  turned  to  a  chestnut  color,  and  the 
teeth  of  the  upper  jaw  were  "  parf aitement  conserve. "  He 
had  then  been  in  his  grave  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  years. 

I  returned  from  my  pilgrimage  to  Paris  in  time  to  dress  and 
attend  the  dinner  given  by  the  American  colony  at  the  Hotel 
de  Louvre,  in  honor  of  the  day.  Judge  Mason,  our  Minister, 
presided,  his  wife  occupying  the  seat  at  his  right  hand.  On  the 
judge's  left  sat  Keitt,  the  abettor  of  Brooks  in  his  assault  upon 
Sumner,  and  his  bride.  Dr.  Evans,  the  dentist,  and  Mrs. 


FOURTH  OF  JULY  IN  PARIS  219 

Evans,  George  Francis  Train,  a  Mr.  Hart  of  Troy,  and  Mr. 
George  Butler,  the  artist,  son  of  George  B.  Butler,  the  junior 
law  partner  of  Daniel  Lord,  were  all  the  guests  with  whom  I 
had  any  personal  acquaintance. 

Judge  Mason  made  a  few  remarks  about  the  Fourth  of  July, 
and  then  warned  the  rest  of  us  to  say  nothing  that  would  give 
offence  to  the  authorities.  His  first  toast,  "The  Day  We 
Celebrate,"  was  to  have  been  responded  to  by  Mr.  Keitt,  but 
the  judge  had  to  respond  to  it  for  him,  on  the  ground,  as  he 
said,  that  Keitt,  being  newly  married,  was  no  longer  in  a  con 
dition  to  celebrate  independence. 

I  was  called  upon  to  reply  to  a  toast  given  to  * '  The  Press. ' ' 
I  said  in  reply  that  I  had  not  much  to  boast  of  in  this  world, 
but  that  I  had  one  distinction  to  which  few  of  my  adult  com 
patriots  could  lay  claim,  that  was  that  I  had  never  made  a 
Fourth-of-July  speech,  and  I  did  not  intend  to  forfeit  that 
distinction  by  making  one  then:  that  if  I  were  possessed  of 
distinctions  like  those  around  me,  I  could  afford  to  surrender 
this ;  but  that  under  the  circumstances  I  thought  it  rather  un 
generous  that  they  should  try  to  take  from  me  that  which,  not 
enriching  them,  would  leave  me  poor  indeed.  I  went  on  to  say 
that  had  I  been  disposed  to  make  a  Fourth-of-July  speech,  and 
been  permitted  to  choose  the  time  and  place,  I  should  certainly 
choose  the  country  which  sent  us  Lafayette  and  Kochambeau, 
and  the  time  when  that  country  is  displaying  supernatural 
energy  in  delivering  the  oppressed  of  other  lands;  I  would 
select  France  and  this  present  moment,  when  she  is  bringing 
to  a  head  the  long-standing  issue  between  dynasticism  arid 
constitutionalism,  and  by  the  success  of  her  arms  and  the  pro 
spective  triumph  of  constitutionalism  rendering  a  permanent 
peace  practicable  in  Europe— a  condition  of  which  she  had  had 
little  experience  in  her  past  history. 

* l  If  there  be  any  member  of  the  press  here  present  who  does 
not  appreciate  the  sufficiency  of  my  motive  for  not  speaking  in 
behalf  of  a  craft  to  which  I  owe  so  much  and  with  which  I  am 
always  proud  to  have  my  name  associated,"  I  said,  I  would 
give  them  another  reason  which  I  was  sure  they  would  appre 
ciate.  They  would  find  it  in  the  old  proverb, ' l  Never  speak  of 
the  gallows  in  a  family  where  any  one  has  been  hung. ' '  That 
I  regarded  as  reason  enough  for  not  toasting  the  press  in 
France. 


220       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

When  I  sat  down,  the  judge  rose  and  observed  that,  from 
the  way  I  assigned  my  reasons  for  not  making  a  speech,  he 
hoped  that  whenever  I  did  make  one,  like  John  Gilpin  he  may 
be  there  to  see.  He  added  that,  while  I  professed  to  continue 
in  a  bachelor  state  as  to  speech-making,  he  felt  called  upon  to 
announce,  as  a  fact  that  had  come  to  his  knowledge  officially, 
that  an  American  lady  had  quite  recently  given  birth  to  a 
French  Yankee  girl,  and  that  before  the  child  was  sixteen  days 
old,  the  mother  was  about  as  usual.  The  lady  was  Mrs. 
Bigelow,  the  wife  of,  etc.  Thereupon  the  health  of  Mrs.  Bige- 
low  was  proposed  and  drunk  with  noise. 

On  Saturday,  July  9,  accompanied  by  George  Cranch,  a  son 
of  the  poet  Cranch,  a  lad  of  fifteen  or  sixteen  years,  I  started 
for  Passy  to  look  up  the  place  which  had  been  occupied  by  Dr. 
Franklin  during  his  residence  as  the  diplomatic  agent  of  the 
United  States.  I  found  the  place  without  difficulty.  A  part  of 
the  building  or  dependance  of  the  De  Chaumont  estate  which 
he  occupied  was  at  this  time  still  standing  in  the  street,  then 
known  as  No.  40  Eue  Basse.  It  was  occupied  by  some  Sisters 
of  Charity  who  conducted  an  institution  for  poor  children.  I 
visited  the  creche,  the  infirmary  and  the  school-room.  The  air 
was  almost  pestilential,  the  place  excessively  dirty,  the  walls 
and  every  corner  covered  with  rubbish,  doubtful  odors  meeting 
one  at  every  turn.  A  pleasant  plot  of  grass  and  trees,  em 
bracing  perhaps  half  an  acre,  lay  in  the  rear.  Some  years  later 
I  had  occasion  to  look  up  the  history  of  this  property  for  some 
American  friends  who  wished  me  to  purchase  it  and  construct 
a  suitable  home  for  the  United  States  Legation  in  Paris.  The 
result  of  my  investigation  may  be  found  in  an  article  entitled 
"Franklin's  Home  and  Host  in  France, "  which  was  published 
in  the  Century  Magazine  for  the  month  of  March,  1888. 

I  gave  the  Sisters  a  few  francs,  of  which  they  seemed  as 
much  in  need  as  their  pupils,  and  then  drove  to  the  mairie  to 
find,  if  I  could,  the  house  in  which  Berenger  lived.  I  had  rea 
son  to  believe  it  was  in  the  same  street,  the  Eue  Basse,  but  no 
one  at  the  mairie  could  give  me  any  information  whatever 
upon  the  subject.  We  then  drove  to  No.  5  bis  Eue  de  Pompe, 
a  chalet  occupied  by  Jules  Janin,  then  the  most  justly  popular 
feuilletonist  connected  with. the  press  of  France.  The  place 
was  enclosed  by  a  high  wall.  I  asked  permission  of  the  gar 
dener  to  see  it.  He  told  me  I  could  look  around,  while 


VISIT  JULES  JANIN  221 

another  gentleman,  whom  I  took  for  a  seedy  litterateur, 
was  told  to  let  M.  Janin  know  that  we  were  there.  We  wan 
dered  about  the  grounds,  something  less  than  an  acre  in  dimen 
sions,  a  frame  house  a  la  Suisse  standing  nearly  in  the  centre 
of  the  lot.  Shrubbery  and  flowers,  with  a  few  trees,  grew 
along  the  walls.  Along  the  gable  of  the  house  was  written  in 
German  character,  "Sumit  materiam  vestris  viribus  equam." 
Below,  but  above  the  rez-de-chaussee,  a  line  of  similar  import 
from  Boileau  was  inscribed,  signifying  that  we  must  limit  our 
building  to  our  resources. 

Before  I  had  fairly  seen  what  was  before  our  eyes  to  see,  the 
servant  came  and  asked  us  de-  monter  ("to  come  in").  We 
ascended  the  stairs,  which  were  outside,  to  a  piazza,  which  gave 
into  a  library,  where  we  saw  a  lady  writing  at  one  end  of  the 
room,  and  a  gentleman  sitting  with  his  back  toward  us,  also 
writing.  The  lady  turned  to  take  a  look  at  us,  while  the  gentle 
man,  without  turning,  said  in  a  perfectly  cordial  and  offhand 
manner, ' '  Entrez,  monsieur,  entrez. ' '  He  then  turned  around, 
and  I  found  myself  in  the  presence  of  Jules  Janin.  I  imme 
diately  proceeded  to  make  the  best  excuse  I  could  for  this 
intrusion  by  telling  him  that  I  was  an  American  come  to  Passy 
on  a  pilgrimage  to  the  residence  of  Franklin,  and  that  I  was 
reluctant  to  leave  without  seeing  another  celebrity  whose  name 
was  not  strange,  at  least  to  members  of  the  press,  in  America, 
and  who  I  had  heard  had  been  building  a  country  place  here. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "a  little  affair  of  wood.  You  build  a  great 
deal  of  wood  in  America,  don't  you?" 

I  replied  that  we  did,  although  the  frequency  of  fires  was 
bringing  stone  more  into  use  among  us.  We  discussed  that 
subject  for  a  few  minutes,  but  as  soon  as  I  conveniently  could 
I  took  my  leave,  seeing  that  I  had  evidently  arrived  during  his 
working  hours,  upon  which  I  felt  that  I  had  no  right  to  intrude. 
I  have  often  regretted  since  that  I  was  so  considerate,  and 
have  felt  provoked  that  I  did  not  engage  him  in  conversation, 
for  which  he  seemed  to  be  quite  disposed.  He  was  then  ap 
parently  about  fifty  years  of  age,  his  person  rather  corpulent, 
his  hair  quite  gray,  his  face  round,  full,  and  wearing  a  very 
agreeable  and  kindly  expression.  He  was  confined  to  his  seat 
by  the  gout,  which  he  made  his  excuse  for  not  rising  to  receive 
me.  I  left  him  with  the  conviction  that  I  should  have  liked 
him  if  I  could  have  known  him  familiarly.  He  looked  like  a 


222       EETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

happy  man.  I  presumed  that  the  lady  who  was  in  the  room 
with  him  was  his  wife,  if  he  was  a  married  man;  if  not,  d'une 
autre  espece. 

From  his  house  I  drove  to  the  cemetery  to  visit  the  monu 
ment  to  Michaud,  the  historian  of  the  Crusades.  It  was  a 
rather  unpretending  piece  of  marble,  with  a  bust  of  Michaud 
on  the  top,  and  the  following  inscription  on  the  marble : 

A  Michaud 
L'Historien  des  Croisades 

Le  Voyageur  en  Orient 
Le  Chantre  du  Printemps 

D'un  Proscrit 

Le  Publiciste  Courageux  et  Fidele 

Ne  a  Albans  en  Savoie 

En  MDCCLXVII 

Mort  a  Passy 
Le  XXX.  Septembre  MDCCCXXXIX 

Ses  Amis 
Domine  in  te  Confid& 

On  the  morning  of  the  12th  of  July  one  hundred  guns  from 
the  Invalides  in  the  afternoon  proclaimed  the  conclusion  of 
the  peace  between  the  Emperor  of  France  and  the  Emperor  of 
Austria.  This  was  the  last  of  some  of  the  most  memorable 
forty  days  in  the  history  of  France.  Paris  was  illuminated 
that  night  from  one  end  to  the  other. 

Just  four  weeks  to  a  day  from  my  wife's  confinement  I  em 
barked  with  her  and  our  children  for  Switzerland,  Thun  being 
our  destination.  Joyful  as  was  our  journey  through  the 
green  fields  of  France  and  our  escape  from  the  July  dusts  of 
Paris,  only  one  incident  occurred  which  seems  worth  repeat 
ing  here. 

When  we  arrived  at  Berne  we  stopped  at  a  hotel  for  a  mid 
day  dinner.  It  chanced  that  besides  our  party  the  only  other 
guests  at  the  table  were  an  English  gentleman  with  his  wife 
and  two  children,  very  pretty  girls.  My  wife  asked  the  waiter 
for  potatoes,  and  she  would  not  begin  her  dinner  until  they 
arrived.  After  waiting  some  time  I  called  the  waiter  again 
and  asked  for  the  potatoes.  Simultaneously  we  observed  that 
the  husband  of  the  other  party  was  also  negotiating  for  po- 


FIRST  MEETING  WITH  SIR  WM.  H.  RUSSELL      223 

tatoes,  without  success.  We  caught  each  other's  eyes  and 
orders,  and  exchanged  smiles.  Neither  my  wife  nor  our  fel 
low-travellers  had  considered  that  the  season  of  new  potatoes 
had  not  arrived  and  that  old  potatoes  were  very  scarce  and 
expensive,  if  possible  to  get  at  any  price. 

We  separated  at  dinner,  and  my  party  arrived  at  Thun  late 
in  the  afternoon.  We  were  agreeably  surprised  when  we 
came  to  our  hotel  to  meet  our  fellow-travellers  there,  thinking 
their  children  would  be  companions  to  ours.  After  our  supper 
I  walked  out  upon  the  piazza,  where  I  met  the  gentleman  and 
entered  into  conversation  with  him,  and  very  soon  found 
means  of  confirming  a  suspicion  that  I  had  formed  at  Berne, 
that  he  was  "Our  Own  Correspondent "  of  the  London  Times, 
William  H.  Russell,  whose  "Letters  from  the  Crimea "  all  the 
world  except  some  of  the  generals  of  the  British  army  had 
read  with  admiration.  We  planned  for  the  following  day  an 
excursion  together  to  the  glaciers  of  the  Spliigen.  We  all 
went  up  on  mules  except  my  wife  and  her  infant  child,  then  but 
five  weeks  old,  she  with  her  burden  carried  by  four  stalwart 
men.  The  child,  to  my  surprise,  found  the  exercise  and  the 
air  so  congenial  that  it  did  nothing  from  the  start  until  we 
returned  at  night  but  eat  and  sleep.  That  was  the  commence 
ment  of  a  friendship  and  correspondence  which  I  greatly 
valued  and  which  continued  through  the  lives  of  Mr.  Eussell 
and  his  wife. 

After  a  couple ^of  weeks'  stay  at  Thun  I  started  for  a  tour 
alone,  which  lasted  for  the  best  part  of  a  month,  through  the 
north  of  Italy,  to  Venice,  to  Triest,  and  so  on  to  Vienna,  where 
I  found  I  missed  my  family  so  much  that  I  took  the  shortest 
way  to  rejoin  them  in  Switzerland.  The  only  event  that  I 
remember  of  particular  interest  after  leaving  Thun  was  riding 
through  the  fields  where  the  battle  of  Solferino  had  been 
fought  only  two  weeks  before,  and  seeing  by  the  abundant 
harvest  and  the  trees  loaded  with  fruit  or  decorated  with  their 
healthy  leafage  how  little  note  nature  takes  of  man's  inhu 
manity  to  man. 

I  never  allowed  myself  to  be  separated  so  long  from  my  fam 
ily  again  but  once,  and  that  was  after  all  of  my  children  were 
grown  up  and  only  for  the  three  or  four  months  that  I  accom 
panied  Governor  Tilden  to  Europe  in  1877. 


224       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 
PRESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

OGDENSBUKGH,  April  11,  1859. 
My  dear  Friend: 

Your  favor  of  the  llth  of  March  was  duly  reed  on  my  return 
home.  We  had  a  short  extra  session  of  the  Senate  and  I  re 
mained  at  Washington  some  days  after  it  adjourned  to  bring 
up  all  arrearages  of  outside  work.  ...  If  I  could  spare  the 
means  without  inconvenience  or  even  with  some  inconvenience 
to  myself  I  would  come  &  see  you  in  Paris,  but,  with  the  regard 
I  must  have  to  my  ways  and  means,  I  think  I  cannot  come.  In 
short  I  owe  some  and  mean  to  get  out  of  debt  which  I  hope  and 
expect  soon  to  do.  I  have  reached  my  quiet  home  in  Ogdens- 
burgh,  where  I  expect  to  spend  most  of  the  summer  and  read 
more  than  I  have  been  able  or  disposed  to  do  for  some  years. 

The  session  of  Congress  has  been  disastrous  for  the  ad 
ministration  and  the  democratic  party.  The  administration  of 
the  War  and  Navy  Departments  has  been  shown  to  be  cor 
rupt.  The  Post  Office  Department  profligate  and  bankrupt. 
The  President  feeble  &  unsound.  The  whole  administration 
about  as  bad  as  bad  can  be.  The  Cuba  scheme  by  which  the 
public  attention  was  to  be  excited  &  diverted  was  in  the 
hands  of  Slidell  &  the  President  sustained  by  Douglas  a  mis 
erable  failure.  Douglas  has  failed  to  hold  the  amount  of  pub 
lic  attention  he  desires.  The  President,  Jeff  Davis,  Slidell 
and  that  class  of  men  are  irreconcilably  hostile  to  him.  Wise 
and  Hunter  are  at  war  with  one  another,  but  either  of  them  as 
well  as  Breckenridge  would  be  willing  to  receive  the  support 
of  Douglas,  though  neither  of  them,  I  think,  would  be  willing  to 
support  him  or  able  to  do  so  with  any  efficiency.  There  has 
been  some  effort  to  bring  out  Guthrie  as  a  man  upon  whom 
they  might  all  unite  but  as  yet  without  much  developed  result. 
Douglas  has  hopes  for  himself  at  Charleston.  Toombs  &  Ste 
vens  it  is  said  rather  favor  him  though  it  is  said  too  that 
Toombs  has  aspirations  of  his  own.  Douglas  disclaims  being 
a  candidate  but  it  is  given  out  that  his  purpose  is  to  go  to 
Charleston  as  a  State  delegate  from  Illinois  &  there  present 
and  contend  for  popular  sovereignty  as  the  true  construction 


THE  REPUBLICANS  CONFIDENT  IN  1860       225 

of  the  Cincinnati  Platform  and  the  true  test  of  Democracy, 
subject  only  to  the  constitution  and  the  decision  of  the  Su 
preme  Court  I  suppose,  and  to  require  the  adoption  of  popular 
sovereignty  by  the  Charleston  convention  as  the  condition  of 
his  adhesion.  He  hopes  to  prevail  there  and  if  he  does  that 
he  will  be  made  the  representative  of  the  platform  he  estab 
lished.  There  are  those  who  are  determined  he  shall  not  suc 
ceed  in  either  purpose  and  enough  of  them  I  think  to  destroy 
him  in  the  convention,  though  by  his  schism  the  final  disper 
sion  of  the  democratic  organization  should  be  threatened.  I 
think  if  his  success  is  possible  at  Charleston  it  would  produce 
a  Southern  Schism  equally  disastrous  to  the  democratic  or 
ganization  and  I  think  too  the  positions  of  Douglas  are  so 
unsound  as  well  as  inconsistent  that  he  can  never  be  sustained 
by  the  Country.  You  have  seen  the  debates  in  the  Globe  for 
the  last  session  and  the  events  at  Washington,  so  that  I  give 
you  more  speculation  &  less  detail  of  facts  than  I  otherwise 
would.  The  recent  session  of  Congress  has  increased  the  con 
fidence  of  Republicans  in  themselves,  in  their  principles  and  in 
the  consistency  and  strength  of  their  organization,  and  the 
courage  of  the  democrats  is  weakened,  especially  that  of  the 
silver  grey  Whig  democrats  who  supported  Buchanan.  Many 
democrats  who  supported  Buchanan  are  at  last  beginning  to 
doubt  the  democracy  of  the  democratic  party. 

On  our  side  there  is  very  strong  confidence  in  the  success 
of  the  Eepublican  Party  in  1860  and  there  is  no  sign  that  this 
confidence  of  success  will  produce  any  such  rivalry  for  the 
Republican  nomination  as  will  prevent  the  hearty  unanimity 
of  the  party  in  the  Election.  The  desire  for  success  is  as 
strong  as  the  confidence  that  it  will  be  attained.  The  general 
expectation  is  Governor  Seward  will  be  our  candidate.  I  told 
you,  I  think,  in  my  former  letter  that  he  and  his  friends  in  this 
State  considered  his  nomination  pretty  much  a  certain  thing 
though  there  are  other  candidates  whose  expectations  are  not 
laid  aside  by  their  friends  or  themselves.  There  is  some 
uneasiness  with  some  of  our  folks  in  this  State  of  democratic 
antecedents,  but  so  far  as  I  can  learn  there  is  a  general  ex 
pectation  and  disposition  to  give  the  Governor  the  unanimous 
support  of  the  delegation  from  New  York.  The  solicitude  you 
express  for  the  course  of  the  Post  induces  me  to  speak  of  it 
especially.  I  should  as  you  know  be  reluctant  and  slow  to 


226        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

criticize  or  dissent  from  it,  but  there  is  no  reason  to  do  so. 
The  course  of  the  paper  is  certainly  discreet  and  just  and  I  am 
glad  to  see  by  the  increase  of  its  columns  prosperous.  Mr. 
Bryant  talked  frankly  with  me  when  I  saw  him  last  fall  on  my 
way  to  Washington  and  whatever  may  be  his  own  personal 
preference  as  to  a  candidate  he  will  cheerfully  acquiesce  in  & 
support  the  choice  of  the  Eepublicans.  We  talked  about  our 
State  and  its  action  and  I  as  frankly  stated  my  opinion  in 
favor  of  Governor  Seward  and  the  importance  to  our  cause  of 
unanimity  in  this  State.  I  have  not  seen  any  thing  in  the  Post 
indicating  a  disposition  to  discuss  the  question  of  Candidacy. 
Out  of  this  State  in  addition  to  those  who  have  been  more  or 
less  talked  of  there  are  indications  that  Cameron  of  Penn 
sylvania,  who  has  been  understood  to  be  favorable  to  Governor 
Seward,  may  be  in  the  field  as  a  Pennsylvania  candidate.  Wade 
of  Ohio  and  Bates  of  Missouri  are  also  named.  It  seems  to 
me  that  the  more  candidates  there  are  the  better  Governor 
Seward 's  prospects  will  be  with  this  Great  State  unanimously 
for  him.  The  Era  and  other  papers  are  becoming  impatient 
of  being  still.  Dr.  Bailey  is  frankly  for  Chase  first  but  satis 
fied  with  Seward  &  proposes  to  discuss  the  subject  in  a  series 
of  articles  already  commenced.  The  Tribune  opened  on  the 
subject  last  winter— as  you  have  I  suppose  seen.  But  enough 
and  more  than  enough.  I  must  say  however  that  Governor 
Morgan  is  deservedly  winning  the  respect  and  good  opinion 
of  everybody  with  very  few  exceptions — and  these  not  be 
cause  he  does  not  deserve  them  but  because  they  will  not  be 
pleased.  .  .  . 

Yours  truly 


SUMNER  TO  BIGELOW 

BAINS  FRASCATI, 

PBES  DE  HAVRE, 

22  August,  >59. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

It  was  kind  in  you  to  think  of  me  at  Coire  with  the  Spliigen 
&  that  Italian  descent  before  you.    But  perhaps  you  wrote  to 


MOLIERE  AND  "TARTUFFE"  227 

make  me  unhappy  at  the  thought  that  I  could  not  taste  again 
that  delight.  Oh !  I  envy  you  that  tour— made  with  a  perfect 
back-bone.  I  can  not  imagine  anything  more  full  of  various 
charm. 

The  cities  between  Milan  &  Venice  are  overflowing  in  inter 
est.  But  you  are  to  go  by  Trieste  to  Vienna.  What  a  road ! 
And  Vienna  itself —offensive  as  it  is  as  the  capital  of  a  despot 
—has  the  look  of  a  metropolitan  centre  of  govt.  It  is  a  study. 
Then  there  is  Prague,  where,  standing  on  the  bridge  of  the 
Moldau,  &  looking  at  the  palaces,  you  may  catch  effects  which 
will  remind  you  of  Martin's  spaces  in  his  Feast  of  Belshazzar 
&  his  throne  of  Satan;  &  there  is  Dresden,  with  a  gallery  of 
exquisite  beauty  &  a  Kaffaelle,  which  you  may  call  the  first 
picture  in  the  world  &  I  will  not  quarrel  with  you;  &  Berlin 
with  complete  galleries  of  all  kinds ;  &  Munich,  &  Nuremberg 
—"quaint  old  city  &c"— &  Augsburg  (don't  fail  to  stop  at  the 
Drei-Meeren  &  try  its  Wein-Carte)  &  Stuttgart  &  Heidelberg, 
Frankfort— &  the  Ehine. 

You  are  wise  to  make  a  hurried  tour  through  Germany,  & 
then  return  to  France.  In  attempting  to  get  both  languages 
you  would  lose  both.  See  Germany,  physically,  geographically, 
esthetically,  as  well  as  you  can,  &  return  to  France,  where  you 
will  keep  among  Frenchmen  as  much  as  possible.  In  travel, 
you  will  do  best  alone,  trusting  to  the  society  of  the  day,  &  the 
opportunities  of  making  acquaintances,  from  whom  you  will 
get  some  idea  of  foreign  life  &  thoughts.  Of  course,  always 
have  a  book  with  you,  as  a  companion,  should  other  society 
fail.  But  keep  alone— always  excepting  the  companionship  of 
a  friend,  whose  society  might  compensate  for  the  loss  of  all 
that  chance  can  throw  in  yr  way. 

I  have  been  here  several  weeks,  splashing  daily  in  the  salt 
water  &  going  to  bed  at  9  o'clk  &  shall  continue  through  the 
first  week  of  Sept.  when  I  shall  set  my  face  towards  Paris  for 
the  last  time.  Shall  I  see  you?  No. 

God  bless  you ! 

Ever  Sincerely  Yours 


We  returned  to  Paris  the  last  of  September,  where  we  re 
mained  until  the  1st  of  February.    A  night  or  two  after  our 


228        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

arrival,  I  noticed  Moliere 's  play  of  "Tartuffe,  or  the  Hypo 
crite  "  billed  at  the  Comedie  Franchise.  I  had  read  this  play 
some  eighteen  years  before,  but  the  study  that  I  had  been  giv 
ing  of  late  to  the  religious  phases  of  civilization  in  France 
during  the  age  of  Louis  XIV.  gave  me  a  special  interest  in 
seeing  the  play  on  the  stage;  and  putting  all  other  engage 
ments  aside,  I  took  tickets  for  Mrs.  Bigelow  and  myself. 

Being  familiar  almost  exclusively  with  the  American  stage, 
I  was  profoundly  impressed  by  the  marvellous  dramatic  talent 
displayed  by  the  artists  who  represented  this  play.  I  was  even 
more  impressed  with  the  courage,  not  to  say  the  audacity,  of 
Moliere  in  venturing  to  put  such  a  play  on  the  stage  in  the  life 
time  of  a  monarch  who  could  not  endure 1 1  Telemachus ' '  because 
of  the  liberal  principles  which  it  inculcated  in  politics  and  its 
rigorous  principles  in  religion.  It  was  natural  that  a  monarch 
who  deemed  Fenelon  unfit  to  have  charge  of  the  education  of 
his  grandson  should  find  "Tartuffe"  offensive.  A  sovereign 
whose  prescriptive  and  arbitrary  course  both  in  state-craft 
and  church-craft  had  made  so  many  hypocrites  could  hardly 
permit  them  to  be  held  up  to  public  ridicule  without  himself 
becoming  ridiculous.  After  proscribing  Fenelon,  how  could 
he  let  Moliere  go  unscathed,  while  one  no  less  than  the  other 
was  using  all  the  weapons  of  his  genius  to  expose  the  rotten 
ness  of  the  royal  government? 

Bossuet,  as  the  chief  ecclesiastical  pillar  of  Louis  XIV.  's 
throne,  of  course  denounced  Moliere,  whose  comedies,  he  said, 
were  full  of  impieties  and  infamies.  This  remark  of  the 
"  Eagle  of  Meaux,"  as  his  admirers  were  wont  to  designate 
him,  has  half  inclined  me  to  believe  the  stories  of  certain  un- 
clerical  weaknesses  as  insinuated  by  Voltaire,  and  discussed 
at  length  by  the  Abbe  Le  Dieu  in  the  appendix  to  the  first 
volume  of  his  "Curious  Journal." 

The  following  day  I  read  Bazain  's  Life  of  Moliere.  He  says 
that  the  current  Life  of  the  great  French  dramatist  adopted  by 
Voltaire  and  all  who  had  written  subsequently  of  him  is  for 
the  most  part  fiction,  and  adds:  "There  is  this  double  sin 
gularity  in  the  existence  of  a  man  who  has  written  much  and 
whose  profession  has  long  kept  him  in  view— that  he  has  not 
left  a  single  line  of  his  own  handwriting,  and  that  none  of  his 
contemporaries  or  friends  have  communicated  to  the  public 
anything  relating  to  his  personality ;  that  no  biography  of  him 


SUMNER  RETURNS  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES      229 

was  attempted  until  1705,  thirty-two  years  after  his  death, 
when  a  man  by  the  name  of  Grimaust,  'and  who,'  says  Boileau, 
'  knew  nothing  of  Moliere  and  was  mistaken  in  everything,  not 
even  knowing  facts  familiar  to  all  the  world/  wrote  his  Life, 
which  has  held  possession  of  Moliere 's  character  ever  since, 
having  been  reprinted  thirty  times."  It  seems  to  be  estab 
lished  that  Moliere  was  the  son  of  a  tapissier,  and  after  work 
ing  some  time  at  the  trade,  studied  law,  and  finally  quitted  that 
profession  for  the  stage  as  an  amateur  actor,  with  no  thought 
then  of  becoming  a  dramatic  author. 

On  the  30th  of  September  I  called  upon  Charles  Sumner, 
whom  I  was  happy  to  find  still  in  Paris,  though  prepared  to 
leave  for  London  in  a  few  days.  He  spoke  very  warmly  of 
Villemain's  "Lectures  on  French  Literature"  as  the  best  in 
any  language.  I  said  I  thought  it  was  the  most  readable.  He 
said  that  it  was  the  most  readable  there  could  be  no  question, 
and  that  when  I  used  that  word  he  was  balancing  in  his  mind 
whether  Hallam 's  "History  of  Literature"  was  not  of  a 
higher  order  of  work.  I  told  him  that  I  made  the  modification 
for  the  benefit  of  Hallam.  He  seemed  divided  between  his 
annoyance  that  I  should  qualify  his  expression,  and  his  ad 
miration  of  Hallam,  and  went  on  to  pass  a  high  and  deserved 
eulogium  upon  Hallam 's  work. 

Sumner  cannot  bear  to  have  any  one  talk  as  though  anything 
could  be  found  in  books  about  literature  and  literary  men  that 
he  did  not  know.  I  have  seen  him  snap  up  poor  Bemis,  one  of 
his  satellites,  and  Mr.  Lyman  also,  in  a  most  ferocious  way, 
for  attempting  to  quote  a  book  to  him,  as  if  he  did  not  know 
it  already.  Indeed,  such  are  the  only  occasions  in  my  long 
acquaintance  with  him  when  he  has  ever  appeared  unamiable. 
But  he  was  then  an  invalid  of  a  kind  that  excuses  everything. 

At  a  subsequent  visit  Sumner  told  me  that  Mason,  our 
Minister,  is  not  much  encouraged  to  attend  the  card-parties  at 
the  Tuileries,  because  he  is  very  awkward  in  the  use  of  his 
right  hand  since  his  paralytic  stroke,  and  the  habit  of  putting 
his  fingers  to  his  mouth,  which  is  always  surcharged  with 
tobacco  spittal,  and  then  to  his  cards,  soon  spoils  his  pack, 
beside  rendering  it  disgusting  to  those  less  accustomed  to  this 
popular  Virginia  decoction. 

Sumner  left  for  England  the  next  week  and  returned  to 


230       KETKOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

America  early  in  November  following.    I  saw  no  more  of  Mm 
until  my  own  return  to  America. 

Sunday,  October  2. 

Judge  Mason  died  this  morning  at  nine  o'clock  after  an  ill 
ness  of  only  eight  hours.  He  had  retired  for  the  night,  and 
was  talking  with  Mrs.  Mason  about  some  one  who  had  died  of 
apoplexy,  when,  observing  something  strange  in  his  articula 
tion,  she  asked  what  was  the  matter.  "Nothing,"  was  the 
imperfectly  articulated  reply.  She  looked  at  him,  saw  his 
tongue  was  much  swollen,  and  she  shrieked.  He  never  spoke 
again.  This  occurred  about  one  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Dr. 
Bigelow  was  sent  for. 

At  one  o'clock  on  the  following  Wednesday  I  attended  Mr. 
Mason's  funeral.  The  Emperor  sent  a  dispatch  directing  one 
of  his  chamberlains  to  attend  with  a  guard  of  honor.  They 
arrived  late,  and,  as  usual,  made  a  good  deal  of  disturbance 
with  their  guns  and  militarynesses,  but  no  doubt  were  a  com 
fort  to  the  family  of  the  deceased.  None  of  the  diplomatic 
corps  were  present  except  the  Turkish  Ambassador.  Some  say 
the  diplomatic  body  were  not  properly  notified;  others  that 
they  were  on  vacation  in  the  absence  of  the  Emperor  and  are 
not  in  Paris. 

I  occasionally  saw,  during  my  stay  in  Paris,  Dr.  Smith,  who 
held  some  relation  with  the  Curia  at  Eome,  and  was  the  agent 
through  whom  Americans  usually  were  assisted  in  obtaining 
audiences  of  the  Pope  and  visiting  the  papal  institutions  of 
interest.  Speaking  one  day  of  the  then  critical  relations  be 
tween  France  and  the  Church,  he  said  there  was  a  letter  in  the 
Vatican,  written  by  Napoleon  to  the  Pope  just  before  the 
Franco-Italian  War,  pledging  himself  to  guarantee  the  in 
tegrity  of  the  papal  territory.  The  war  went  on ;  the  legations 
revolted  and  peace  was  made,  but  nothing  was  said  or  done  by 
Napoleon  about  restoring  the  disaffected  legations.  It  was  in 
reference  to  this  written  pledge  that  the  Pope  used  the  follow 
ing  language,  as  translated  into  English,  in  his  allocution  of 
the  20th  of  June : 

"This  hope  is  strengthened  because,  according  to  the  dec 
larations  of  our  very  dear  son  in  Jesus  Christ,  the  Emperor  of 


HOW  NAPOLEON  III.  SECURED  A  PEACE   231 

the  French,  the  French  armies  in  Italy  will  do  nothing  against 
our  temporal  power  and  the  domination  of  the  Holy  See,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  will  protect  and  preserve  them." 

In  calling  my  attention  to  the  italic  lines,  the  doctor  says 
this  language  is  not  nearly  so  strong  as  the  letter  of  the  Em 
peror  itself. 

In  reply  to  the  Pope's  remonstrance  at  the  time  of  the  peace, 
and  his  reminder  of  the  imperial  engagements,  the  Emperor 
suggested  certain  reforms  as  conditions  preliminary  to  the 
restoration  of  the  legations.  "No  conditions  whatever,"  was 
the  Pope's  reply.  "Keep  your  engagements  to  me:  restore 
the  legations,  and  then  I  will  talk  of  reforms. ' ' 

The  doctor  told  me  that  Odo  Russell,  the  agent  of  England 
in  Eome— she  has  no  Minister  there— had  informed  him  that 
Napoleon  cheated  Austria  into  a  peace  just  as  he  cheated  the 
English  in  1856  to  close  the  Crimean  War.  He  drew  up  in  his 
tent  certain  conditions  of  peace,  which  he  transmitted  to  the 
British  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  with  the  request  that  he, 
representing  a  neutral  power,  would  communicate  them  to  the 
Austrian  Government.  At  first  the  English  Government  de 
clined  to  have  anything  to  do  with  the  matter,  but  finally  con 
cluded  simply  to  transmit  the  document  without  note  or 
comment.  Napoleon  kept  advised  of  the  day  that  the  docu 
ment  should  reach  the  Emperor  of  Austria— he  was  then 
investing  Peschiera— and  sent  word  to  the  Emperor  that  he 
wished  to  see  him.  They  met ;  he  told  Francis  Joseph  that  he 
was  aware  that  his  Majesty  had  received  proposals  for  a  peace 
from  the  neutral  powers,  described  them,  and  then  said,  "I 
will  give  you  better  terms ;  I  will  do  so-and-so. ' '  The  Austrian 
cabinet  were  either  taken  in  completely,  or  thought  they,  could 
not  do  better ;  and,  after  taking  a  night  to  consider,  accepted 
Napoleon's  proposition. 

This  is  one  of  the  many  stories  in  circulation  about  the 
means  by  which  the  war  was  so  abruptly  brought  to  a  close, 
and  has  the  merit  of  being  the  one  believed  to  be  true  at  the 
Vatican. 

Sunday,  October  9. 

As  I  was  walking  this  morning  in  the  Boulevard  du  Fille 
Calvaire,  I  picked  up  a  volume  of  ephemerides,  and  under  the 
month  of  October  read  that  Cardinal  Berulle,  the  founder  of 


232       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

the  Oratoire  in  Paris,  died  while  engaged  in  saying  Mass,  giv 
ing  occasion  to  the  following  distich : 

Coepta  sub  extremis,  nequeo  dum  sacra  sacerdos 
Perficere,  at  saltern,  victima  perficiam.1 

On  the  13th  of  October  I  set  out  for  a  brief  visit  to  Geneva 
alone.  I  spent  the  first  night  at  Dijon.  After  an  unusually 
good  dinner  at  the  Hotel  Cloche  I  walked  down  to  the  Place 
Jean  in  the  Eue  Bossuet,  where  the  house  still  stands  in  which 
Bossuet  was  born,  and  beside  it  the  church,  now  used  as  a  shop 
of  some  sort,  in  which  he  was  baptized.  The  house  is  of  two 
stories,  and,  as  I  say,  still  stands,  though  only  the  side  walls  of 
the  original  remain.  The  peaked  roof  of  the  Middle  Ages  has 
given  place  to  a  modern  French  hipped  roof.  The  lower  floor 
is  occupied  as  a  book-store,  and  the  upper  part  by  the  family 
of  the  proprietor,  who  proved  to  be  an  intelligent  man. 

I  asked  him  about  the  monument  to  Bossuet,  which  my 
friend  M.  de  Tassy,  a  professor  of  Oriental  literature,  had 
once  told  me  had  been  interdicted  by  the  bishop.  The  pro 
prietor  said  that  was  a  mistake:  that  the  bishop  was  in  fact 
vice-president  of  the  commission  for  receiving  subscriptions, 
and  the  Count  Montalembert,  whom  I  was  fortunate  enough 
three  or  four  years  later  to  reckon  among  my  most  valued 
friends,  was  president  of  the  commission.  The  opposition 
referred  to  by  M.  de  Tassy  came  from  the  clergy,  who  had 
become  so  virulently  ultramontane  that  they  discouraged  any 
tribute  of  respect  to  the  great  apostle  of  Gallicanism. 

It  was  a  curious  illustration  of  the  change  which  had  come 
over  the  Holy  See  since  the  time  when  the  Jesuits  were  ex 
pelled  from  all  Catholic  countries  and  denounced  as  a  religious 
organization  by  the  reigning  Pope  in  a  formal  bull.  The  name 
of  Bossuet  in  these  days  evidently  was  no  longer  a  name  to 
conjure  with  among  the  hierarchy  of  the  Latin  Church. 

13th  October,  Dijon. 

This  morning  after  breakfast  I  took  a  fiacre  and  drove  out 
to  Fontaine,  about  a  mile  and  a  half  distant,  picturesquely 
situated  so  as  to  overlook  Dijon  and  all  the  neighboring  coun 
try,  so  famous  for  its  Burgundy  wines. 

*"If  I  cannot  finish  the  Holy  Sacrifice  as  a  priest,  I  will  at  least  finish 
it  as  a  victim." 


VISIT  THE  BIRTHPLACE   OF  ST.  BERNARD       233 

The  purpose  of  my  excursion  was  to  see  the  birthplace  of 
St.  Bernard,  the  antagonist  of  Abelard  and  the  most  influential 
preacher  of  the  Crusades. 

I  soon  found  the  cure,  a  very  intelligent,  amiable  and  earnest 
young  man,  scarcely  thirty  years  of  age  apparently.  He  first 
conducted  me  to  the  chapel,  which  occupies  the  most  con 
spicuous  position  on  the  hill  and  is  visible  from  Dijon,  in  which 
chapel  the  mother  of  St.  Bernard  and  the  saint  himself  were 
baptized.  He  showed  me  the  very  spot,  at  the  same  time  de 
ploring  the  removal  and  destruction  by  one  of  his  predecessors 
of  the  original  large  stone  fountain  at  which  the  ceremonial 
was  performed,  now  replaced  by  a  modern  and  smaller  one. 

As  we  entered  he  first  proceeded  to  the  basin  of  holy  water, 
dipped  his  finger  in  it,  and  then  extended  the  finger  toward 
me.  I  did  not  know  what  he  would  be  at,  but  presumed  he 
wished  to  give  me  the  benefit  in  some  way  of  what  he  had  been 
doing;  so  I  pointed  my  finger,  gloves  and  all  on,  at  him,  and 
he  touched  it.  What  I  was  expected  to  do  next  I  was  at  a  loss 
to  guess  and  had  little  time  to  decide.  I  lifted  my  hand  toward 
my  forehead,  while  he  went  on  with  a  prayer,  I  standing  silent. 

I  fear  I  may  have  appeared  to  him  like  a  heathen,  and  I  con 
fess  I  felt  a  little  like  one. 

He  next  called  my  attention  to  an  admirable  bust  of  St. 
Bernard  which  he  says  was  made  from  life.  Saints'  images 
and  saints'  biographies  I  have  usually  found  a  good  deal  like 
the  marchioness's  lemonade  made  out  of  orange-peel—one  has 
to  make  believe  a  good  deal.  But  if  this  bust  was  genuine,  the 
saint  had  an  excellent  head  and  a  fine  face,  which  looks  well  in 
spite  of  his  monastic  dress  and  cropped  hair. 

I  was  next  shown  a  piece  of  Gobelin  tapestry,  very  old  of 
course,  for  it  purported  to  represent  the  beatific  vision  of  St, 
Bernard  as  described  in  Eatisbonne's  Life. 

The  birthplace  of  the  saint  was  a  little  farther  up  on  the  hill. 
It  was  spoken  of  as  the  chateau,  for  the  father  of  St.  Bernard 
was  in  the  service  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  and  evidently  the 
great  man  of  the  village  if  not  of  the  department. 

The  cure,  as  he  led  me  into  the  chapel,  told  me  that  it  was 
built  by  Louis  XIII.  as  an  expression  of  his  gratitude  for  the 
birth  of  a  child  to  him  after  a  pilgrimage  to  Fontaine  and 
special  invocations  for  the  intercession  of  the  saint.  His  wife, 
the  famous  Anne  of  Austria,  had  been  so  long  barren  as  to 


234       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

have  abandoned  all  hope  of  offspring.  His  faith  and  prayers 
were  rewarded  by  having  Louis  XIV.  for  his  son. 

The  chapel,  though  small,  is  very  pretty.  It  originally  had 
three  domes,  small,  but  beautifully  ornamented,  the  letter  A 
under  the  arms  of  France  being  placed  under  one  arch  for 
Anne,  and  L  under  another  for  Louis,  the  third  arch  having 
been  cut  off  by  a  partition  as  unnecessary.  I  understood  the 
cure  to  say  that  the  chapel  was  given  to  the  monks  of  the 
Order  of  St.  Benedict,  but  during  the  Revolution  it  was  used 
as  a  stable  and  afterwards  sold,  and  finally  was  bought  by  a 
priest  who  now  occupies  it.  When  the  saint's  mother  died  the 
cure  said  all  Dijon  came  up  to  see  her  buried. 

When  we  walked  back  the  cure  insisted  upon  my  going  in 
with  him  and  tasting  some  of  Fontaine's  wine,  which  was  in 
deed  uncommonly  fine.  At  the  same  time  he  introduced  to  me 
two  others  of  his  order  who  were  at  table  taking  their  break 
fast,  which  consisted  apparently  of  wine  and  grapes.  After  a 
little  conversation  and  a  suitable  recognition  of  the  cure's 
courtesy,  I  bade  him  good-by. 

While  at  Geneva,  where  I  arrived  the  night  after  this  visit, 
I  of  course  drove  to  Ferney,  which  the  fame  of  Voltaire  has 
made  a  pilgrim's  shrine.  The  chateau  is  fine  without  being 
pretentious.  The  present  possessor,  M.  David,  who  made  his 
fortune  as  a  lapidary,  bought  the  property  about  eleven  years 
previous.  I  was  permitted  to  visit  its  interior,  and  what  I  saw 
one  may  find  fully  described  in  Murray.  The  view  of  Mont 
Blanc  and  the  ranges  of  hills  on  either  side  was  indescribably 
fine;  the  sky  had  a  warm  coloring,  and  the  entire  landscape 
was  altogether  charming. 

I  walked  through  the  berceau  in  which  Voltaire  used  to  dic 
tate  to  his  secretary;  visited  the  elm  that  he  is  said  to  have 
planted;  picked  up  some  horse-chestnuts  to  plant  at  The 
Squirrels  (and  where,  I  am  happy  to  say,  they  are  still  thriv 
ing)  ;  begged  an  apple  for  the  seed,  which  I  meant  to  put  to 
the  same  use,  and  some  geranium  seed. 

His  chapel,  so  called,  was  then  used  as  a  storehouse;  the 
motto,  "Deo  erexit  Voltaire,"  in  large  letters,  still  stares  at 
one  from  over  the  entrance.  The  approach  to  the  chateau  is 
through  a  fine  avenue  of  elms. 

The  village  of  Ferney  has  its  Hotel  Voltaire  and  its  Cafe 
Voltaire. 


THE  CHATEAU  DE  JOUX  AND  TOUSSAINT       235 

On  the  14th  I  drove  with  a  Mrs.  Paine,  an  American  lady 
from  New  York,  to  the  Deodati  chateau,  where  I  was  permitted 
to  see  the  sleeping-room  and  bed  which  had  been  occupied  in 
other  days  by  Lord  Byron,  also  his  study.  Though  the  furni 
ture  was  old,  the  house  was  neat  and  in  admirable  condition. 

The  descendants  of  Milton's  valued  friend,  whom  his  muse 
has  made  immortal,  have  ceased  to  occupy  the  Deodati  cha 
teau  for  many  years.  They  are  in  the  habit  of  letting  it  to 
strangers  for  $800  a  year.  This  year  of  my  visit  it  had  no 
tenant.  The  site  and  everything  about  it  is  delightful,  and  it 
is  difficult  to  conceive  of  a  more  attractive  summer  retreat  for 
a  student. 

Before  leaving  Geneva  I  bought  Eousseau's  "Nouvelle  He- 
loi'se,"  thinking  it  might  be  worth  looking  over  in  situ,  as  it 
were,  during  my  trip.  Before  retiring,  the  night  after  leaving 
Geneva,  I  read  an  hour  in  the  book,  but  without  profit.  It  im 
pressed  me  as  a  foul  book,  though  full  of  cleverness. 


THE  LAST  DAYS  OF  TOUSSAINT  L'OUVERTURE 

I  returned  to  Paris  by  way  of  Lausanne,  for  a  look  at  the 
dwelling  there  to  which  Gibbon  had  given  classic  importance, 
and  then  I  next  took  the  somewhat  unusual  route  over  the 
mountains  to  Pontarlier.  I  wanted  to  get  a  view,  if  possible,  of 
Mont  Blanc  from  the  heights  of  the  Jura ;  to  become  better  ac 
quainted  with  the  people  of  this  department  of  France,  whom 
of  all  the  French  I  most  admire;  and,  above  all,  to  visit  the 
famous  Chateau  de  Joux,  where  Mirabeau  was  confined  at  the 
time  he  contracted  his  scandalous  relations  with  Mme.  de 
Monnier,  the  *  '  Sophie ' '  of  his  Vincennes  correspondence,  and 
where  Toussaint  L'Ouverture  died,  a  victim  to  the  treachery 
of  Napoleon  and  the  severity  of  an  Alpine  climate. 

As  the  diligence  passed  under  the  Fort  de  Joux,  the  chief 
object  of  my  pilgrimage  before  reaching  Pontarlier,  I  dis 
mounted,  allowing  my  baggage  to  go  on  to  the  bureau  de  poste. 
The  fort,  now  more  than  seven  centuries  old,  stands  upon  the 
very  summit  of  a  solid  rock  about  five  hundred  feet  high, 
which  descends  very  abruptly  on  all  sides,  and  by  its  position 
at  a  defile  in  the  mountains,  commands  the  approach  from 


236       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

every  direction.  With  three  hundred  men  it  was  impregnable 
in  former  times,  notwithstanding  which,  in  consequence  of  its 
great  value  as  a  frontier  fortification,  it  has  changed  hands 
more  frequently  perhaps  than  any  fortress  in  France  outside 
of  Paris. 

I  found  a  small  garrison  at  the  fort,  consisting  mostly  of 
soldiers  just  returned  from  Italy,  who  were  lounging  about  in 
the  last  stages  of  disgust  with  the  monotonous  perch  to  which 
they  were  condemned.  A  chatty  old  woman,  who  acted  as 
concierge,  promptly  responded  to  my  request  to  visit  the 
castle,  by  running  for  her  keys.  She  then  led  me  over  the 
portcullis,  the  ornaments  of  which  showed  that  it  was  built 
before  battle-axes  and  bows  and*  arrows  went  out  of  fashion, 
into  the  courtyard  where  the  commandant  resided.  The  first 
curiosity  to  which  she  invited  my  attention  was  the  well  of  the 
castle,  dug  through  the  solid  rock  down  to  the  level  of  the 
little  river  Orbe,  which  winds  along  the  base  of  the  hill,  a  depth 
of  at  least  five  hundred  feet.  My  cicerone,  to  give  me  some 
idea  of  the  depth  of  the  well,  threw  in  some  stones,  from  which 
no  sound  or  echo  of  any  kind  came  up.  This  well  was  built  for 
the  use  of  the  garrison  during  a  siege,  though  in  ordinary 
times  they  are  supplied  with  water  caught  in  cisterns.  It  has 
not  been  used  for  many  centuries,  if  ever ;  the  citadel,  when  it 
has  changed  hands,  having  generally  been  betrayed,  or  shared 
the  fate  of  battles  fought  elsewhere. 

The  well  was  built,  my  guide  told  me— and  her  information 
I  have  confirmed  from  other  sources— by  the  serfs  and  vassals 
of  the  feudal  proprietor  of  the  fort,  in  the  ninth  century.  She 
lowered  her  voice  when  she  added  that  multitudes  who  went 
down  to  work  in  its  abysses  never  returned  to  the  light  of  day. 
Indeed,  the  tradition  is  that  they  were  told  when  they  were 
sent  to  their  work  that  they  were  not  to  return  till  it  was 
finished.  They  were  obliged  to  dig  large  recesses  at  regular 
and  convenient  distances  in  the  sides  of  the  pit,  as  their  ex 
cavations  progressed,  and  these  were  their  homes  during  their 
frightful  imprisonment,  from  which  most  were  relieved  only 
by  death. 

Of  all  the  dreadful  shapes  which  " man's  inhumanity  to 
man"  has  ever  taken,  there  are  few  which  feed  the  imagina 
tion  with  more  fearful  visions  of  misery  and  despair  than  were 
reflected  from  this  dark,  impenetrable  mirror,  framed  five 


TOUSSAINT,  WHY  CALLED  L'OUVERTURE        237 

hundred  feet  deep  in  granite.  When  I  considered  that  all  the 
enormities  of  which  this  structure  had  been  the  occasion  and 
the  theatre  were  perpetrated  in  the  quest  of  water,  in  all  ages 
and  countries  the  consecrated  emblem  of  truth,  I  was  struck 
for  the  thousandth  time  with  the  resemblance  which  runs 
through  all  the  forms  of  human  perversity. 

WTiile  pondering  the  question  whether  France  had  gained 
any  more  substantial  advantage  from  her  endless  and  sangui 
nary  ecclesiastical  wars  than  from  the  sinking  of  this  dismal 
pit,  which  the  dews  of  heaven,  that  fall  alike  upon  the  unjust 
and  the  just,  made  superfluous,  my  guide  led  me  to  another 
part  of  the  fort,  where  she  showed  me  an  opening  like  a  closet 
in  the  wall,  about  three  feet  deep  and  high,  and  perhaps  four 
feet  long.  Here,  she  informed  me,  Amaury,  one  of  the  earliest 
proprietors  of  the  chateau,  confined  his  wife,  a  young  woman 
of  only  seventeen  years,  for  infidelity  to  him  during  his  ab 
sence  with  the  crusaders  in  the  Holy  Land  in  1170.  He  hung 
her  suspected  paramour  upon  the  mountain  immediately  oppo 
site,  and  confined  Bertha— that  was  her  name— in  this  mural 
sepulchre,  which  was  too  small  to  admit  of  her  standing  erect 
or  lying  prostrate,  or  indeed  of  stretching  her  limbs  in  any 
direction.  The  only  view  of  the  outer  world  that  she  could  get 
was  through  a  little  window,  cut  so  that  she  could  see  the 
remains  of  her  lover  dangling  from  a  distant  tree.  After 
some  ten  years  of  indescribable  misery,  death  released  her 
from  her  prison  and  from  her  brutal  jailer. 

The  good  old  woman,  who  related  this  legend  tearfully— 
although  I  have  no  doubt  she  had  told  it  a  thousand  times  be 
fore—gave  great  force  to  her  denunciation  of  the  cruel  cru 
sader  by  adding  that,  "  after  all,  Bertha  was  innocent. " 

Crossing  the  court  and  passing  along  the  gloomy  corridor 
of  stone,  I  was  next  led  to  a  door  which,  as  my  companion  pro 
ceeded  to  unfasten,  she  informed  me  was  occupied  by  the 
"naygre."  It  was  the  dungeon  of  Toussaint,  first  called 
"L'Ouverture"  by  a  French  officer,  because  of  his  military 
prowess  in  opening  the  ranks  of  the  English  soldiers  with  his 
sword  during  some  engagement.  Though  of  African  origin, 
and  forty-eight  years  a  slave,  he  took  advantage  of  the  revolu 
tionary  troubles  in  France,  and  subsequent  hostilities  between 
France  and  England,  to  make  the  blacks  of  St.  Domingo  inde 
pendent,  and  himself  President  for  life.  Bonaparte,  who 


238       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

approved  of  the  lead  he  took  in  saving  the  colony  from  the 
English,  was  solicited  to  approve  the  action  of  the  Central 
Assembly  which  made  him  President.  Toussaint 's  letter  bore 
the  following  somewhat  memorable  but  not  altogether  concil 
iatory  superscription,  "The  first  of  the  blacks  to  the  first  of 
the  whites."  Bonaparte's  answer  was  taken  out  by  Leclerc, 
his  brother-in-law,  and  thirty  thousand  of  the  best  troops  in 
France,  who  issued  a  proclamation  apprising  the  islanders 
that  the  French  general  had  been  sent  out  as  the  first  magis 
trate  and  captain-general  of  the  colony.  Toussaint  bade  him 
and  his  master  defiance,  set  fire  to  the  Cape,  retired  to  the 
mountains,  and  resisted  the  invaders  with  such  success  that  at 
the  end  of  eight  months  Napoleon's  brother-in-law  had  but 
three  thousand  effective  men  out  of  the  thirty  thousand  that 
had  landed  with  him.  Finding  it  impossible  to  conquer  Tous 
saint,  Leclerc  invited  him  to  a  conference,  under  the  usual 
pledges  for  his  safety,  and  when  in  his  power,  regardless  of 
his  own  honor  or  that  of  his  master,  or  of  the  nation  so  gravely 
compromised  by  his  conduct,  he  hustled  the  too  confiding  negro 
on  board  of  a  ship  and  sent  him  to  France.  After  a  brief  con 
finement  in  the  Temple  at  Paris,  Napoleon  ordered  him  to  the 
Fort  de  Joux.  The  room  which  he  occupied,  and  to  which  I 
was  now  introduced,  is  some  twenty-five  or  thirty  feet  long, 
by,  say,  twelve  broad.  There  was  a  fireplace  on  one  side  near 
the  middle,  but  no  furniture  of  any  kind.  Its  walls  were  all  of 
stone,  and  arched  with  stone  overhead.  Near  the  ceiling  one 
end  was  pierced  by  a  small  window  which  admitted  what  light 
and  air  the  inmates  were  expected  to  enjoy,  but  which  seemed 
enough  to  keep  the  place  sufficiently  dry  for  habitation.  On 
the  mantel  over  the  fireplace  was  the  lower  half  of  a  skull,  most 
of  the  brain-cover  having  been  taken  off,  and  resting  on  what 
remained,  was  the  following  avis,  which  my  guide  forbade  my 
copying,  as  contrary  to  the  orders  of  the  commandant,  and  for 
a  transcript  of  which,  as  for  many  other  gratifying  attentions, 
I  was  indebted  to  M.  Girod,  to  whose  archaeological  and  his 
torical  labors  I  have  already  made  allusion : 

Toussaint  L'Ouverture,  who  effected  the  enfranchisement  of  the 
negroes  of  his  country,  and  in  the  day  of  his  prosperity  designated 
himself  as  the  Bonaparte  of  St.  Domingo,  and  who  wrote  to  Napoleon, 
4 'The  first  of  the  blacks  to  the  first  of  the  whites/'  terminated  his 


CALUMNIES  REGARDING  TOUSSAINT'S  DEATH    239 

career  in  this  casement  of  the  donjon  of  Fort  de  Joux.  It  is  pretended 
that  he  answered  an  aide-de-camp  of  the  First  Consul,  who  came  to 
ask  him  where  he  had  concealed  his  treasures:  "Say  to  your  master 
that  I  will  die  before  he  shall  know  anything  from  me." 

The  Chef  de  Bataillon  Amiot,  commandant  of  the  Place  du  Fort  de 
Joux,  found  him  here  in  a  corner  of  his  fireplace  struck  with  apoplexie 
foudroyante,  the  17th  Terminal,  the  year  11.  Some  days  before  his 
death  he  declared  that  he  had  buried  15,000,000  in  the  mountains  by 
slaves  whom  he  had  destroyed. 

I  felt  indignant  at  finding  such  a  gross  calumny  as  this  upon 
the  character  of  one  of  the  bravest,  and,  according  to  his  op 
portunities,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  of  his  day,  per 
petrated  by  the  authority  of  the  Government ;  and  when  I  was 
refused  permission  to  take  a  copy  of  it,  my  inference  was  that 
those  who  placed  it  there  knew  that  it  was  one  of  those  lies  that 
would  not  bear  ventilation,  and  therefore  kept  it  from  the  pub 
lic,  but  left  it  to  do  what  it  could  quietly  to  poison  the  minds 
of  all  who  made  the  pilgrimage  to  his  tomb.  I  was  afterwards 
satisfied  by  M.  Girod  that  I  did  the  French  Government  injus 
tice,  at  least  in  one  respect,  for  he  assured  me  that  no  orders 
to  prevent  copies  being  made  of  the  paper  on  the  mantel  had 
ever  been  given  to  the  concierge. 

It  is  a  shame,  however,  for  the  Government  to  perpetuate 
such  an  absurd  scandal  upon  the  memory  of  Toussaint  as  that 
he  destroyed  the  slaves  who  helped  him  hide  his  treasures; 
for  the  story  not  only  is  supported  by  no  evidence,  but  it  lacks 
the  first  element  of  plausibility.  That  he  may  have  said  he 
had  treasures  buried  in  St.  Domingo,  and  that  he  may  have 
added,  for  the  purpose  of  being  sent  back  to  find  them;  that 
there  were  no  living  witnesses  of  their  burial,  is  not  impos 
sible;  but  it  is  preposterous  to  suppose  that  such  a  man  as 
Toussaint  would  have  perpetrated  such  a  gratuitous  crime,  or, 
if  he  did,  that  lie  would  have  told  of  it,  without  any  apparent 
motive. 

This  story  to  the  prejudice  of  "the  first  of  the  blacks"  is  as 
unfounded  as  another  which  has  been  current  ever  since  Tous 
saint  's  death,  and  which  is  generally  credited  in  Hayti  now; 
that  he  was  poisoned  by  the  orders  of  Napoleon,  or  at  least 
upon  the  supposition  that  his  speedy  demise  would  gratify  the 
Emperor.  Even  supposing  there  was  some  motive  for  getting 


240       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Toussaint  more  completely  out  of  the  way  than  he  was,  which 
is  hardly  credible,  the  circumstances  of  his  death  are  not  mat 
ters  of  conjecture  or  suspicion,  but  of  public  record,  and  ex 
empt  the  authorities  of  that  day  from  any  other  responsibility 
for  his  sudden  death  than  naturally  attaches  to  his  treacherous 
arrest  and  removal  in  midwinter  from  the  climate  of  the 
tropics,  in  which  he  had  lived  sixty  years,  to  a  bleak  Alpine 
region,  more  noted  than  any  other  in  France  for  the  severity 
of  its  winters. 

The  day  after  his  death  two  physicians  of  Pontarlier  made 
an  official  examination  of  his  remains,  and  certified  that  he 
died  of  apoplexy  and  pleuro-pneumonia.  Their  certificate,  or 
proces  verbal,  as  it  is  termed,  is  filed  among  the  archives  of 
the  hotel  de  ville  in  Pontarlier,  from  whence  M.  Girod  was 
kind  enough  to  procure  for  me  a  copy  duly  authenticated 
under  the  seal  of  the  mayoralty  of  Pontarlier.  As  this  cer 
tificate  had  never  been  in  print,  and  as  it  finally  disposes  of  a 
very  painful  suspicion  which  is  still  widely  credited,  I  give  it 
entire. 


Copy  of  the  Minutes  of  the  Post-mortem  Examination  of 
Toussaint  L'Ouverture 

We,  the  undersigned,  Doctor  in  Medicine  and  Surgeon  of  the  city  of 
Pontarlier,  pursuant  to  the  invitation  of  Citizen  Amyot,  Commandant 
of  the  Fort  de  Joux,  and  of  Renaud,  Justice  of  the  Peace  of  the  canton 
of  Pontarlier,  have  gone  to  the  said  Fort  de  Joux,  when,  in  their  presence, 
we  have  proceeded  to  the  opening  and  the  examination  of  the  body 
of  the  negro  Toussaint  L'Ouverture,  prisoner,  whose  death  yesterday 
we  have  verified. 


Post-mortem  Examination 

A  little  mucus  mixed  with  blood  in  the  mouth  and  on  the  lips,  the 
left  lateral  sinus  and  the  vessels  of  the  pia  mater  gorged  with  blood, 
serous  effusion  in  the  lateral  ventricle  same  side,  the  choroid  pleurus  in 
filtrated  and  strewed  with  hydatids,  the  pleura  adhering  almost  entirely 
to  the  substance  of  the  lungs;  sanguineous  engorgement  of  the  right 
lung,  as  well  as  of  the  pleura  corresponding,  but  of  a  purulent 
nature  in  these  viscera ;  a  little  fatty  polypus  in  the  right  ventricle  of 


THE  POST-MORTEM  OF  TOUSSAINT  241 

the  heart,  which  otherwise  was  in  a  natural  state;  emaciation  of  the 
epiploon— pathological  state  of  this  membrane  such  as  it  presents  after 
a  long  sickness.  The  stomach,  the  intestines,  the  liver,  the  spleen, 
the  veins,  the  bladder,  exhibited  no  alteration. 

In  consequence,  we  declare  that  apoplexy,  pleuro-pneumonia,  are 
the  causes  of  the  death  of  Toussaint  L'Ouverture. 

Made,  and  certified  to  be  true,  at  the  Fort  de  Joux,  the  18th  Ter 
minal,  An.  XI  of  the  French  Republic. 

(Signed)     TAVERNIER,  Doctor  of  Medicine. 
SURGEON-MAJOR  GRESSET. 

Certified  to  conform  with  the  original  by  us,  the  undersigned  Sec 
retary  of  the  Mayoralty  of  Pontarlier. 
PONTARLIER,  5th  December,  1859. 

(Signed)     JACQUIT,  etc. 


Through  the  kindness  of  M.  Girod  I  was  enabled  to  derive 
from  the  archives  of  Pontarlier  some  further  particulars  re 
specting  Toussaint 's  condition  and  treatment  during  his  con 
finement  here,  which  seemed  worthy  of  exhumation.  They  are 
embodied  in  documents  the  originals  of  which  I  inspected. 

The  first  simply  acknowledges  the  notice  sent  to  the  prefec 
ture  of  the  department  by  the  subprefect  that  Toussaint  had 
arrived,  and  informs  that"  functionary  that  the  arrangements 
for  the  security  of  the  prisoner  are  to  be  under  the  exclusive 
direction  of  the  general  in  command  of  that  division. 

The  second  notifies  the  prefect  that  the  Minister  of  War  had 
given  orders  that  Toussaint  should  receive  healthy  and  suit 
able  food,  and  that  he  should  be  clothed  suitably  for  the  sea 
son,  with  the  understanding  that  he  must  not  wear  a  general's 
uniform. 

The  estimation  in  which  their  prisoner  was  held  by  the 
French  Government,  and  the  rigor  of  treatment  to  which  they 
deemed  it  necessary  to  subject  him,  are  revealed  in  the  third 
letter  from  the  prefect  of  the  department  to  the  subprefect  at 
Pontarlier.  The  following  extract  from  it  might  have  been 
clipped,  mutatis  mutandis,  from  one  of  Governor  Wise's 
heroic  appeals  to  the  chivalry  of  Virginia  against  John 
Brown: 


242       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

1  recommend  you  [ho  writes]  not  to  lose  sight  of  this  important 
object.  If  any  man  imprisoned  for  tho  rest  of  his  days,  whatever 
the  degree  of  his  guilt,  did  not  appeal  to  our  humanity,  I  would  say 
that  this  person,  who  is  known  only  by  his  repeated  pornMy,  murders, 
pillage,  incendiarism,  and  the  most  frightful  cruelties,  did  not  deserve 
any.  Rut  whatever  bo  the  opinion  we  ought  to  entertain  of  him,  the 
orders  of  the  Minister  are  precise.  Toussaiut  must  not  see  any  person, 
nor  must  he  be  permitted  to  leave  the  chamber  in  which  he  is  eou- 
tined,  under  any  pretext  whatever.  The  guard  of  the  fort  should  be 
set  with  the  greatest  exactness,  and  without  the  relaxation  of  vigilance. 
The  lionoral  of  Division  only  eau  modify  the  rigor  of  these  orders, 
and  1  know  he  will  not  do  it  without  being  authorized  by  the  Minister. 
The  commandant,  must  sleep  at  the  fort,  unless  specially  authorized 
to  the  contrary  by  his  superiors.  The  supplies  of  the  prisoner  have 
Ixvn  prescribed.  They  must  not  be  exceeded  upon  any  pretext.  Every 
excess  will  be  stricken  otT  from  the  account. 

Tho  next  letter.  No.  4,  was  written  immediately  after  re 
eeiving  intelligence  of  Toussaiut 'a  death.  In  it  the  prefect 
says : 

You  will  also  please,  on  the  receipt  of  this  letter,  make  an  inventory, 
in  the  presence  of  the  Commandant  d'Anncs,  of  all  the  effects  used 
by  the  prisoner,  and  sell  them  at  auction  to  the  highest  bidder,  after 
the  customary  notices.  You  will  prepare  a  report  of  the  sale  for  me, 
and  remit  the  proceeds  of  it  to  the  widow  Hciicdict  upon  her  receipt, 
deducting  the  sums  due  her  for  her  supplies. 

From  these  documents  and  others  which  I  was  shown  it 
appears: 

1.  That  Toussaint  was  guarded  with  unusual,  if  not  exces 
sive  rigor,  and  that  the  view  taken  of  his  character  and  career 
at  that  time  by  the  War  Department,  whose  agent  declared 
that  if  there  was  an  exception  to  the  rule  that  pity  was  due 
to  the  unfortunate,  Toussaint  was  the  exception,  was  very 
different  from  that  which  is  taken  of  him  now  by  the  world, 
and  indeed  by  the  French  themselves,  who,  through  tho  mouth 
of  the  most  inspired  of  their  modern  poets,  have  said  of  him, 
"Cot  honnne  est  une  nation/*  and  within  fifty  years  after  bis 
cheerless  death  accepted  the  lesson  of  his  life  by  striking  the 
chains  off  every  slave  held  under  a  French  title. 

2.  They  show  that  he  was  not  poisoned,  hut  that  he  died  in 
all  probability  of  a  disease  contracted  in  consequence  of  his 


CATILINE  NAU  243 

involuntary  removal  to  a  colder  and  more  intemperate  climate 
than  at  his  age— over  sixty—bin  constitution,  used  to  the 
warmth  of  the  tropics,  could  endure. 

:>.  It  appears  that  he  was  abundantly  supplied  with  fuel  and 
artificial  light,  for  in  two  months  these  supplies  cost  one  hun 
dred  and  fifty-six  francs,  which,  M.  Girod  assured  me,  is  u  very 
large  allowance,  for  wood  then  was  much  cheaper,  he  said, 
than  at  the  then  present  day. 

•I.  Whether  he  had  a  servant  for  a  while  after  his  arrival, 
and  if  so,  whether  a  negro  or  a  Frenchman,  does  not  appear. 
l<Yom  the  general  character  of  the  instructions  in  reference  to 
him,  and  in  the  absence  of  any  special  provision  for  the  access 
to  him  of  one  of  his  own  color,  it  is  to  be  presumed  that,  if  he 
was  allowed  a  servant,  it  was  a  Frenchman. 

5.  It  appears  that  ho  was  allowed  to  write  and  have  some 
luxuries,  Huch  as  nutmegs,  sugar,  bath,  etc.  These,  1  presume, 
came  out  of  the  four  francs  a  day  allowed  him  from  the  first 
for  board,  washing  arid  mending. 

(5.  It  is  apparent,  unfortunately,  as  M.  Girod  suggested, 
that,  since  the  moderate  sum  of  128  fr.  70  c.  was  all  that  the 
effects  supplied  by  the  Government  brought  after  only  seven 
months'  u§e,  his  wardrobe  was  not  probably  supplied  as  it 
should  have  been,  for  such  a  severe  climate. 

7.  And  finally,  it  appears  that  a  woman  was  provided  to 
keep  his  apartment  in  order. 

The  order  forbidding  Toussairit  to  soe  any  one  not  attached 
to  the  service  of  the  garrison  seems  to  have  been  unnecessarily 
rigorous,  but  it  was  probably  aimed  at  Uigand,  Toussaint's 
ablest  and  most  trusted  aide  in  St.  Domingo,  who  was  captured 
very  soon  after  his  chief,  and  sent  to  the  Fort  do  Joux,  where 
he  remained  until  after  Toussaint's  death,  when  he  was  re 
leased.  They  never  saw  each  other,  though  sleeping  so  near 
together,  after  they  separated  in  St.  Domingo. 

Upon  the  walls  of  Toussaint's  apartment  I  was  surprised  to 
find  but  one  inscription  from  the  hands  of  visitors;  that  was 
the  name  of  Catiline  Nan,  a  man  whom  I  remember  to  have 
met  at  Port  au  Prince  in  1854,  where  he  discharged  the  func 
tions  of  an  Assistant  Secretary  of  State  in  the  Department  of 
foreign  A  Hairs,  under  Soulouquo,  and  who  had  the  credit, 
which  I  do  not  doubt  he  deserves,  of  having  written  the  telling 
and  statesmanlike  dispatches  of  the  Haytian  Government  in 


244       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

reply  to  the  agents  sent  out  by  Fillmore  and  the  English  and 
French  governments,  many  years  ago,  to  compel  the  Emperor 
to  acknowledge  the  independence  of  the  Spanish  or  eastern 
part  of  the  island.  M.  Nan  is  probably  the  only  Haytian  who 
has  ever  made  this  pious  pilgrimage  to  the  prison  and  tomb  of 
the  most  renowned  of  African  statesmen.  M.  Nau,  I  under 
stand,  has  since  died,  much  regretted  by  his  countrymen, 
whose  interests  he  carefully  watched  and  tended  during  his  life. 
Toussaint's  remains,  consigned  to  a  grave  under  the  chapel 
of  the  fort,  were  discovered  by  a  captain  of  engineers  in  1850. 
The  top  of  his  skull,  which  had  probably  been  sawed  off  at  the 
time  of  the  post-mortem  examination,  and  replaced,  he  depos 
ited  in  the  city  library  of  Pontarlier,  where  it  was  shown  me 
by  M.  Girod,  and  the  rest  of  the  head  stands  on  the  mantel 
piece  in  the  room  where  Toussaint  was  confined  and  died. 

While  at  Pontarlier  and  early  in  the  morning  of  Tuesday, 
October  18, 1  witnessed  a  sale  of  wood  in  the  salle  d' adjudica 
tion  in  the  hotel  de  ville,  under  the  direction  of,  or,  to  be 
precise,  devant  le  prefet  du  departement  de  Doubs,  Monsieur 
le  Directeur  des  Domaines  et  de  Monsieur  le  Receveur-General 
des  Finances  et  des  Revenus  des  Communes  Internes  dans  le 
vente,  etc. 

These  several  and  imposing  dignitaries  were  seated  in  a  row 
like  judges,  dressed  in  cocked  hats,  gold  lace,  and  broadcloth, 
one  of  whom,  who  seemed  to  be  the  biggest  toad  in  the  puddle, 
was  about  sixty-five  years  of  age  and  sadly  in  want  of  teeth. 
The  property  to  be  sold — adjudication  au  rdbais,  as  it  is 
termed— was  the  privilege  of  cutting  certain  wood  in  certain 
districts  of  the  neighborhood,  with  the  reservations  prescribed 
in  a  large  quarto  catalogue  distributed  among  the  purchasers. 

The  first  lot  was  put  up  by  order  of  the  venerable  dignitary 
at  1000  francs.  Thereupon  a  crier  or  auctioneer  proceeded  to 
cry  it  down.  He  kept  offering  it  at  a  price  lower  by  ten  francs 
a  cry  until  it  reached  the  sum  of  550  francs,  when  it  was  taken 
by  a  bidder. 

When  I  had  seen  enough  of  this  solemnity  I  waited  upon  M. 
Girod,  the  historian  of  Pontarlier  and  the  keeper  of  the  ar 
chives  of  that  municipality.  With  him  I  visited  the  public 
library,  which,  though  small,  contained  much  rare  historical 
material  relating  to  the  local  history  of  Franche-Comte.  He 
then  took  me  to  the  greffe  to  see  the  letter  of  Mirabeau  to 


John  Bright  Richard  Cobden 


Michel  Chevalier 


VISIT  THE   HOUSE   OF  MIRABEAU'S  SOPHIE     245 

Sophie  which  was  the  foundation  of  their  condemnation  by  the 
court  and  which  Girod  assured  me  had  never  been  published. 
This  letter  defined  the  arrangements  they  had  made  for  their 
flight. 

M.  Girod  then  took  me  to  the  house  where  Sophie  and  her 
husband,  M.  de  Monnier,  had  lived,  a  two-and-a-half  story  and 
attic,  thirty- foot  house,  with  a  large  tailor 's  sign  hanging  over 
the  front  door.  He  also  pointed  out  the  route  by  which  the 
fugitives  escaped  from  this  house. 

I  reached  Paris  on  the  morning  of  the  20th  of  January,  1860. 
On  the  23d  I  went  to  visit  the  remains  of  the  still  famous 
monastery  of  Port-Eoyal,  of  which  Sainte-Beuve  had  then  only 
recently  concluded  a  rather  voluminous  but  pathetic  history, 
the  first  product  of  his  pen,  I  believe,  which  attracted  public 
attention. 

On  the  following  day  I  called  upon  Mr.  Cobden,  who  was 
still  in  Paris,  negotiating  the  first  if  not  then  the  only  treaty  of 
commerce  between  France  and  England  having  exclusively 
commercial  interests  in  view.  I  remarked  to  him  that  he  was 
demonstrating  that  the  post  of  honor  may  be,  occasionally  at 
least,  a  private  station.  He  said  he  was  sensible  that  in  his 
negotiations  here  he  had  been  able  sometimes  to  use  arguments 
to  the  people  about  the  Emperor  which  he  could  never  have 
used  had  he  been  a  member  of  the  Government.  For  example, 
he  said,  these  people  have  the  greatest  horror  of  a  Tory  min 
istry,  Derby's  intemperate  speech  about  the  Emperor,  after 
the  December  coup  d'etat,  being  fresh  in  their  memories.  He, 
however,  was  in  a  position  to  assure  them  that  the  present 
ministry  would  not  be  able  to  sustain  itself,  after  all  the  ex 
pense  it  had  incurred  in  arming  the  country,  unless  something 
in  the  direction  of  free  trade  with  France  was  accomplished. 
He  thought  that,  with  some,  this  argument  had  more  weight 
than  any  other  based  solely  upon  merely  commercial  expedi 
ency.  The  Emperor  and  his  friends  dreaded  nothing  from 
England  so  much  as  a  coalition  of  the  Tories  and  old  Whigs. 
He  said  also  that,  during  the  several  months  he  had  been  here, 
M.  Michel  Chevalier,  the  imperial  councillor  of  state  who  had 
charge  of  the  negotiations  on  the  French  side,  had  been  to  see 
him,  on  an  average,  at  least  once  every  day  and  sent  him  notes 
besides,  on  an  average  of  one  every  day. 

I  found  Mr.  Cobden  suffering  with  an  irritation  about  the 


246        RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

throat  and  a  huskiness  in  his  voice  which  gave  me  some 
anxiety,  which  I  did  not  conceal.  He  made  light  of  it  and 
seemed  indisposed  to  make  any  change  in  his  habits.  I  left 
him  with  a  firm  conviction  that  he  was  not  destined  to  be  a 
very  old  man. 

On  the  night  of  the  26th  my  wife  and  I  were  presented  to 
their  Majesties  at  a  court  ball.  To  us  both  it  was  a  new  and 
rather  imposing  ceremony.  When  I  say  "new"  I  mean  no 
disrespect  to  the  Emperor  Soulouque  and  his  court,  where  I 
had  the  honor  to  be  presented  six  years  before.  I  quote  from 
my  diary: 

The  presentation  over,  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  get  into 
the  throne-room,  the  salle  des  marcheauds,  close  to  the  edge  of 
the  dancing  circle  and  within  twenty  feet  of  the  Emperor, 
who  sat  on  the  Empress's  right,  in  a  gilded  armchair  a  little 
larger  than  any  other  in  the  room.  On  the  Emperor 's  right 
sat  the  Prince  Jerome,  better  known  as  "Plon-Plon,"  and  on 
the  left  of  the  Empress  the  Princess  Clotilde;  on  her  left 
Princess  Mathilde,  and  next  the  Princess  Murat ;  behind  them 
a  half-dozen  or  more  maids  of  honor.  As  this  was  the  first 
opportunity  I  had  had  of  seeing  either  of  their  Majesties  so 
near,  I  do  not  think  I  took  my  eyes  off  them  until  they  went 
into  the  supper-room  after  midnight.  The  Empress  did  not 
impress  me  as  much  nor  quite  in  the  way  I  had  expected.  She 
is  a  pretty  woman;  has  a  graceful  figure;  moves  gracefully; 
has  beautiful  sloping  shoulders,  drooping  eyelids;  and  yet 
there  seemed  to  be  nothing  regal  and  sovereign  in  her  appear 
ance,  nothing  that  indicated  any  comprehension  of  the  part 
she  and  her  husband  were  playing  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
From  what  I  saw  of  her  it  would  never  have  occurred  to  me, 
whatever  my  opportunity,  to  attempt  to  interest  her  in  the 
career  of  which  her  husband  was  such  an  important  factor, 
any  further  than  as  it  affects  her  as  a  wife  and  a  mother. 

The  Emperor  also,  whom  I  had  seen  only  by  the  Empress's 
side  in  their  carriage,  disappointed  me.  He  is  short,  with 
broad  shoulders,  large  chest,  and  barrel  tapering  off  into  two 
legs,  so  short  as  to  seem  very,  very  small.  His  head,  too, 
seemed  rather  large  for  his  legs,  and  he  looked,  as  the  sailors 
say,  "all  by  the  bows,"  like  a  catfish.  This  impression,  how 
ever,  was  not  lasting ;  his  movements  were  all  slow  and  delib 
erate.  Owing  to  the  shortness  of  his  legs,  his  walk  is  not 


FIRST  PRESENTATION  TO  FRENCH  COURT       247 

graceful.  He  seems  to  advance  first  one  side  and  then  the 
other,  as  on  a  pivot,  his  head  moving  from  side  to  side  as  if 
trying  to  keep  time  with  his  legs.  The  first  impression  his 
face  left  upon  me  was  that  of  an  overtasked  man  going  through 
a  wearisome  ceremonial  when  he  was  dying  for  sleep.  His 
eyes  were  very  small,  without  lustre  or  definite  expression, 
which,  with  the  slowness  of  his  motions,  made  him  seem  to  be 
terribly  bored. 

I  soon  discovered  that  this  impression  was  erroneous.  He 
was  not  bored.  He  seemed  so  because  no  other  person's  in 
dividuality  seemed  to  impress  him.  He  spoke  occasionally  to 
the  Empress  or  to  Prince  Jerome,  and  later  moved  about  so  as 
in  the  course  of  the  evening  to  address  a  few  remarks  to  all 
the  ladies  sitting  in  a  line  with  him,  and  to  some  notabilities 
who  participated  in  the  dance.  He  said  but  little  to  each,  and 
sat  silent  most  of  the  time ;  but  whether  he  spoke  or  was  silent 
it  was  evident  that  he  did  not  do  what  he  did  from  any  in 
fluence  outside  of  himself.  The  prompting  of  the  Empress 
once  directed  his  attention  to  the  Due  de  Padua,  who  appeared 
on  the  edge  of  the  circle  late  in  the  evening.  I  had  not  watched 
him  long  before  I  began  to  realize  the  great  economy  of  force 
he  exhibited.  He  did  not  waste  anything— not  a  smile,  not  a 
step,  not  a  gesture,  not  a  look,  not  a  thought,  not  a  word. 

What  makes  company  a  bore  to  many,  if  not  to  all,  when  it  is 
a  bore,  is  that  the  company  takes  captive  the  individuality  of 
the  bored,  arrests  and  directs  his  attention,  subordinates  him 
one  way  and  another,  makes  him  listen  when  and  to  what  he 
may  not  want  to  hear,  and  interrupts  trains  of  thought  he 
would  pursue.  The  Emperor's  surroundings  produced  no 
such  effect  upon  him,  any  more  than  the  trees  of  the  forest 
upon  the  philosopher  meditating  in  their  shade. 

Such  were  my  first  impressions  on  making  the  acquaintance 
of  the  Emperor.  I  do  not  know  how  long  they  will  last,  nor 
how  soon  they  will  be  exchanged  for  impressions  informed  by 
a  larger  experience  and  more  reflection. 

The  Emperor's  smile  is  very  sweet,  but  it  stops  abruptly, 
and  his  face  passes  into  shadow  like  the  meadows  on  a  Novem 
ber  day,  when  no  one  would  think  he  had  ever  smiled  in  his 
life.  This  kind  of  laugh  is  such  an  unmistakable  evidence  of 
insincerity  that  it  always  affects  me  unpleasantly. 

Among  the  other  notabilities  who  attracted  my  attention 


248        RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

during  the  evening  were,  first,  the  man  with  whose  aid  the 
Emperor  is  said  to  have  invented  the  canon  raye,  and  who 
works  privately  with  him,  while  totally  unknown  outside ;  an 
other  who  was  called  the  Emperor's  Life-preserver  and  is 
never  out  of  his  sight  unless  represented  by  some  one  else,  and 
who  is  charged  with  the  arrangements  of  the  police  that  are 
responsible  for  the  Emperor's  person;  also  the  Prefect  of  the 
Seine,  Baron  Haussmann,  who  made  himself  indispensable  to 
the  Emperor  by  his  wonderful  capacity  for  conducting  the 
improvements  of  Paris.  I  was  told  that  the  baron  had  his 
wife  shut  up  in  a  madhouse  the  other  day  to  get  rid  of  her, 
though  as  innocent  of  madness  as  any  woman  in  France.  Cre- 
dat  Judceus;  non  ego.  He  is  a  man  of  herculean  frame,  but 
has  his  enemies  who  have  tried  in  vain  to  supplant  him.  No 
one  could  be  found,  however  competent,  to  fill  his  place. 

Supper  was  served  about  half-past  one  o  'clock.  We  did  not 
reach  home  until  about  three  in  the  morning. 

Mr.  Cobden,  learning  that  I  was  going  soon  to  London,  was 
good  enough  to  send  me  some  letters  which  procured  for  me 
several  very  valuable  friends  in  England,  whither  I  was  al 
ready  preparing  to  wend  my  way. 

On  the  30th  of  January,  at  two  in  the  afternoon,  I  was  privi 
leged  to  attend  the  session  of  the  Institute  and  to  listen  to  a 
discourse  about  the  chemist  Thenard  from  M.  Flourens.  M.  F. 
is  about  fifty-three  or  fifty-four  years  old,  I  should  think,  with 
a  puritanical  expression  of  face  and  head ;  wears  a  scratch  and 
what  the  Bowery  boys  call  a  "soap-lock"  deployed  down  the 
centre  of  the  forehead  in  the  shape  of  a  comma  or  an  inverted 
squash.  His  address,  which  he  read,  was  full  of  telling  per 
sonalities  and  well  received. 


PKESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  January  16,  1860. 
My  dear  Friend: 

Your  two  letters  of  June  26  and  Nov.  15  were  duly  reed  and 
read  with  a  great  deal  of  pleasure  notwithstanding  a  single 
suggestion  of  what  is  impossible.  You  will  never  think  I  for- 


KING'S  VIEW  OF  THE  POLITICAL  SITUATION    249 

get  you.  I  know  how  much  in  every  way  I  owe  you  and  I  am 
not  of  the  kind  to  dislike  a  creditor  in  good  acts  because  he  is 
my  creditor.  I  value  them  and  the  kindness  of  Mrs.  Bigelow 
and  yourself  if  not  as  much  as  I  ought  at  least  gratefully.  You 
would  not  see  that  I  was  outre  but  took  me  home  to  your  house 
supposing  that  I  had  some  qualities  which  I  hope  I  possess, 
and  among  them  I  can  assure  you  is  memory. 

The  House  of  Kepresentatives  is  not  yet  organized  nor  is 
there  any  way  determined  how  it  will  be  organized.  It  is  be 
lieved  by  the  Eepublicans  that  no  combination  can  be  made  to 
choose  a  speaker  against  the  Kepublican  Vote.  .  .  . 

Governor  Seward  arrived  in  Washington  by  the  7  P.M. 
Train  from  Philadelphia  on  Saturday  the  7th  inst.  He 
brought  me  your  kind  remembrances  and  tells  me  he  spent 
much  time  in  your  company.  He  appeared  in  the  Senate 
Chamber  on  Monday  the  9th  a  little  before  the  hour  of  meet 
ing  and  was  heartily  greeted  by  the  Eepublican  members 
present  who  shook  him  by  the  hand  and  welcomed  him  home  & 
back  to  the  Senate  Chamber.  The  democrats  did  not  hasten  to 
greet  him  but  stood  aloof  or  rather  remained  on  their  own  side 
of  the  Chamber  to  which  he  did  not  go.  This  does  not  amount 
to  much  but  it  was  remarked  &  spoken  of  by  others  rather  than 
by  me. 

The  Evening  Post,  sailing  now  in  smoother  water  by  its  well 
proved  chart,  is  doing  its  whole  duty  as  it  did  in  55  and  56 
when  the  stars  were  obscured  by  storm  clouds  and  the  Eepub 
lican  Ship  went  out  upon  the  untried  sea  with  its  principles 
and  its  purposes  for  its  guide.  The  sky  looks  brighter  now. 
The  events  at  Harpers  Ferry  were  seized  upon  by  the  slave 
propagandists  as  a  means  of  making  party  capital.  The 
Christian  Heroism  of  Brown  after  his  capture  confounded 
them— and  drew  the  attention  of  men  from  what  appeared  to 
be  the  insanity  of  his  conduct  before.  The  democrats  are 
overworked.  What  they  absurdly  charged  to  be  a  Eepublican 
plot  and  their  action  rather  damaged  than  benefited  them  in 
the  Election  last  fall.  Harpers  Ferry,  Helpers  Book  and  the 
irrepressible  conflict  have  been  the  themes  of  declamation  on 
the  administration  side  in  the  House  to  prevent  the  election 
of  a  speaker,  arrest  the  onward  motion  of  Eepublicanism  and 
save  the  Union.  They  have  kept  the  House  disorganized  but 


250       EETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

have  not  made  much  impression  upon  the  Country.  I  think 
the  democratic  organization  will  cry  in  vain  for  rescue  from 
the  condemnation  that  already  overshadows  the  party.  Their 
internal  feuds  &  the  corrupt  desires  and  ambition  of  their 
motley  leaders  impel  them  to  destroy  one  another  whenever 
the  Eepublicans  leave  them  leisure  for  battle  in  their  own 
camp.  Toombs  and  some  others  of  the  worst  of  the  slave  prop 
agandists  are  I  think  friends  of  Douglas  and  I  think  he  has 
capitulated  without  condition  to  them,  being  allowed  to  speak 
for  squatter  sovereignty  while  he  sustains  the  Dred  Scott 
Decision  that  annihilates  it.  I  have  no  doubt  Douglas  hopes 
to  be  nominated  at  Charleston  and  believes  if  he  is  that  neces 
sity  will  compel  all  the  slave  propagandists  to  support  him. 
The  South-Americans,  some  of  whom  are  reasonable  men, 
desire  I  think  to  see  the  democrats  beaten  more  than  they 
desire  or  hope  for  any  thing  else.  They  are  hostile  to  the 
Eepublicans— hold  fast  to  their  slavery  ground— and  mean  to 
beat  the  democrats  in  some  of  the  slave  states  if  the  Slavery 
flag  is  at  all  lowered  by  the  democrats.  This  is  one  of  the 
embarrassments  of  Toombs  and  Douglas  in  doing  any  thing 
for  Douglas,  who  is,  I  think,  done  for  any  way  but  whose 
strength  if  he  has  any  is  in  what  there  is  left  of  the  Territorial 
sovereignty  delusion  in  the  free  states.  Breckenridge,  Hunter, 
Davis  and  others  in  the  Senate  and  Guthrie,  Wise  and  others 
out  of  it  want  the  Charleston  Nomination.  Dallas,  Dickinson 
and  Seymour  are  understood  to  be  looking  for  it— and  some 
think  Buchanan  expects  it  &  will  kick  if  not  satisfied  with  the 
nominee.  The  prospects  of  the  democratic  party  are  not 
promising  and  no  man  can  tell  what  the  Charleston  convention 
will  do. 

In  our  Republican  household  it  looks  better  whatever  may 
happen.  I  think  Seward  will  be  the  nominee.  He  thinks  so  I 
am  sure— and  if  he  is  not  nominated  no  man  can  tell  who  will 
be.  The  Pennsylvania  delegation  will  be  chosen  unitedly  for 
Cameron— asking  for  but  not  obtaining  his  nomination  and  I 
think  Pennsylvania  will  prefer  Seward  to  anybody  but  their 
own  man.  John  M.  Eeed  with  Pennsylvania  at  his  back  would 
be  a  strong  man  in  the  convention  but  without  Pennsylvania 
he  will  hardly  be  presented  as  a  candidate. 

Chase  is  earnestly  desirous  of  the  nomination  and  his 
friends  are  active  for  him.  In  positive  strength  through  the 


SAINTE-BEUVE  AND  THE  EVENING  POST       251 

Country  I  think  he  stands  next  to  Seward.  But  he  is  weakened 
some  by  McLean's  friends  in  Ohio  and  there  is  also  more  or 
less  talk  of  Wade  of  Ohio,  who  is  an  able  man.  Bates  of  Mis 
souri  seems  just  now  to  be  the  favorite  of  the  conservatives 
who  think  it  would  not  be  safe  to  have  a  Eepublican  elected, 
but  who  are  willing  to  designate  a  National  man  for  whom  it 
would  be  safe  and  for  whom  they  will  consent  that  Republicans 
may  vote.  Our  friends  the  Blairs,  thorough  and  sound  as  they 
are  themselves,  are  for  Bates  as  a  Missouri  candidate  and  hope 
that  with  him  as  our  candidate  we  could  carry  Missouri.  I  do 
not  hear  much  said  of  Banks  lately  though  he  is  a  strong  and 
skilful  man.  I  have  no  idea  the  Eepublican  convention  will 
nominate  any  body  about  whose  thorough  Eepublicanism  there 
is  the  least  doubt  &  I  trust  there  is  better  reason  to  expect  this 
than  my  wishes,  decided  as  they  are.  I  do  not  know  to  whom 
the  Tribune  will  in  the  end  give  its  weight.  Its  editors  are 
praising  Bates  and  in  conversation  express  a  desire  for  some 
body  else  than  Seward.  But  I  have  thought  they  would  be 
content  with  him.  They  express  apprehensions  for  results  and 
desire  for  success.  I  think  the  political  atmosphere  has  be 
come  heated  enough  to  make  Seward  the  strongest  candidate 
we  can  nominate.  I  only  hope  his  administration  will  be  as 
sound  and  decided  as  our  opponents  apprehend. 

With  sincere  Esteem  Your  Friend 


During  our  sojourn  in  Paris  I  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Sainte-Beuve,  whose  "Lundi"  contributions  to  the  Constitu- 
tionnel  had  made  a  great  impression  upon  me,  as  indeed  they 
did  upon  all  Paris,  and  I  thought  I  was  fortunate  in  being 
able  to  make  an  arrangement  with  him  to  correspond  with  the 
Evening  Post.  It  was  soon  evident  that  he  required  a  larger 
space  than  a  daily  journal  in  New  York  could  afford,  to  treat 
such  subjects  as  he  was  wont  to  treat  in  the  way  he  loved  to 
treat  them,  and  upon  a  hint  I  received  from  Mr.  Bryant  (which 
introduces  the  following  letter)  the  correspondence  was  dis 
continued. 

Mr.  Bryant's  letter,  however,  possesses  a  greater  interest  in 
giving  his  views  about  the  candidates  whose  merits  were  to  be 
passed  upon  at  the  impending  Presidential  election. 


252        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 
WILLIAM  CULLEN  BKYANT   TO  BIGELOW 

NEW  YORK,  Feb.  20, 1860. 
Dear  Mr.  Bigelow: 

I  am  not  much  disappointed  by  the  loss  of  M.  St.  Beuve's 
letters.  He  is  a  brilliant  writer,  but  much  of  French  brilliancy 
disappears  in  translation,  and  I  am  not  certain  that  a  French 
man  can  write  good  letters  for  an  American  newspaper. 

It  does  not  seem  to  me  that  the  outlay  of  the  correspondence 
you  have  planned  will  ever  be  returned  to  us,  but  if  you  think 
differently  I  would  have  you  try  it.  The  letters  I  am  sure  will 
not  be  read  with  the  interest  that  your  own  have  bejen.  A 
clever  man  might  gather,  it  appears  to  me,  Iboth  literary  and 
scientific  matter  from  the  French  publications,  matter  as  inter 
esting  as  a  Frenchman  in  Paris  could  possibly  furnish,  and 
put  it  into  a  shape  better  proportioned  to  our  space  and  more 
attractive  for  general  readers.  Do  not,  however,  let  me  stand 
in  the  way  of  any  project  of  the  kind  which  appears  to  you  to 
promise  well.  The  trial  will  shew. 

As  to  the  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  I  do  not  recollect 
that  I  gave  an  opinion  as  to  who  would  not  get  the  nomina 
tion.  I  find  that  Bates  is  more  and  more  talked  of  for  the 
Eepublican  Candidate.  He  is  said,  for  example,  to  be  the 
man  who  can  carry  Illinois  against  Douglas  by  bringing  out 
a  large  number  of  old  whigs  living  in  the  middle  of  the  state 
—originally  from  the  slave  states.  The  probability — rather 
let  me  say  the  chance  that  Douglas  will  be  nominated  by  his 
party  seems  to  increase.  The  great  reason  for  believing  that 
he  will  be  nominated  is  that  he  is  their  strongest  candidate, 
and  to  that  idea  their  minds  are  opening.  There  is  not  the 
slightest  prospect  of  the  nomination  of  Wise.  Nine  tenths  of 
the  democratic  party  regard  the  idea  as  absolutely  ludicrous. 

Mr.  Seward  is  not  without  his  chances  of  a  nomination, 
though  some  of  your  friends  here  affirm  that  he  has  none.  He 
is  himself,  I  hear,  very  confident  of  getting  it.  While  the 
John  Brown  excitement  continued,  his  prospects  improved, 
for  he  was  the  best  abused  man  of  his  party.  Now  that  he  is 
let  alone  his  stock  declines  again  and  people  talk  of  other 


FIRST  VISIT  TO  LONDON  253 

men.  For  my  part  I  do  not  see  that  he  is  more  of  a  represen 
tative  man  than  a  score  of  others  of  our  party.  The  great 
difficulty  which  I  have  in  regard  to  him  is  this,  that  by  the 
election  of  a  Eepublican  President  the  slavery  question  is  set 
tled,  and  that  with  Seward  for  President,  it  will  be  the  great 
est  good-luck,  a  special  and  undeserved  favor  of  Providence, 
if  every  honest  democrat  of  the  Eepublican  party  be  not 
driven  into  the  opposition  within  a  twelvemonth  after  he 
enters  the  White  House.  There  are  bitter  execrations  of 
Weed  and  his  friends  passing  from  mouth  to  mouth  among 
the  old  radical  democrats  of  the  Eepublican  party  here.  I 
suppose  Weed  never  behaved  worse  than  now— and  his  conduct 
alarms  the  best  men  here— they  think  it  an  omen  of  what  we 
may  expect  from  Seward 's  administration.  We  have  a  shame 
fully  corrupt  legislature. 

Captain  Schultz  is  very  anxious  that  you  should  return  and 
electioneer  for  Seward 's  nomination.  I  must  say  frankly  that 
I  would  prefer  that  the  question  should  be  left  to  the  con 
vention. 

.  .  .  My  wife  and  daughter  desire  to  be  cordially  remem 
bered  by  you  both. 

Yrs  truly 


FIEST  VISIT  TO  LONDON 

On  the  1st  of  February  we  reached  London  and  took  lodg 
ings  with  Mrs.  Cooper,  32  Jermyn  Street.  On  the  6th  my  wife 
and  I  visited  Westminster  Abbey.  I  was  disappointed  in  its 
size  and  in  the  arrangement  of  its  monuments.  I  had  imag 
ined  a  more  imposing  edifice  and  more  taste  in  the  artistic 
quality  and  distribution  of  its  contents.  They  seemed  to  have 
been  thrown  together  with  no  eye  whatever  to  any  combined 
effects.  As  I  stood  near  the  statue  of  Addison,  my  eye  fell  by 
chance  upon  a  paper  pasted  upon  a  stick  lying  on  the  floor, 
with  these  words  in  large  characters  written  on  it:  "Lord 
Macaulay's  Grave. "  There  was  no  man  in  Europe  upon  see 
ing  whom  I  had  counted  more  than  Macaulayj  nor  was  there 
any  one  to  whom  I  felt  under  greater  obligations.  This  grave 


254       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

was  the  nearest  I  could  now  come  to  what  was  mortal  of  that 
gifted  man.  Thackeray,  by  the  way,  had  an  excellent  article 
on  Macaulay  and  Irving  in  the  February  number  of  his  mag 
azine. 

The  only  father  and  son  who  had  reached  the  honors  of 
sepulture  in  the  Abbey  by  their  public  achievements  were 
Zachary  Macaulay  and  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay,  and  the 
two  Pitts.  The  faculty  of  winning  worldly  distinction  is  not 
hereditary. 

On  leaving  the  Abbey  we  passed  into  the  House  of  Lords, 
then  sitting  as  a  court  of  appeals.  They  were  listening  to 
Eoundell  Palmer,  who  was  discussing  a  question  of  inheritance 
which  depended  upon  which  one  of  two  persons,  one  a  man  and 
the  other  a  woman,  drowned  by  the  same  catastrophe,  perished 
first.  Among  the  peers  present  were  Lords  Brougham,  Cran- 
worth,  and  Chelmsford  (Thesiger). 

On  the  9th  of  February  I  visited  the  Times  office.  The 
marble  inscription  over  the  doors,  placed  there  by  some  mer 
chants  of  London  as  a  token  of  gratitude  for  the  persistence 
and  success  of  the  Times  in  exposing  a  disgraceful  swindling 
operation,  was  new  to  me.  It  was  a  satisfaction  to  see  this 
evidence  that  the  world  sometimes  appreciates  the  more  pain 
ful  and  dangerous  risks  that  journalists  have  to  incur  who  do 
their  duty. 

February  20. 

Eussell  and  Thackeray  called  and  informed  me  of  my  elec 
tion  to  the  Garrick  for  three  months. 

Thackeray  said  that  a  letter  from  Macaulay 's  brother  in 
formed  him  that  the  deceased,  Thomas  Babington,  was  reading 
the  Cornhill  when  he  died;  that  he  had  been  in  the  habit  of 
giving  away  a  third  of  his  income  or  more  every  year.  Thack 
eray  added  that  the  sale  of  the  Cornhill  Magazine  had  gone  up 
to  95,000  already,  and  that  he  told  Lord  Palmerston  at  Lady 
Palmerston's  reception,  a  few  nights  ago,  that  he  was  now  also 
a  power  in  the  state. 

He  said  the  story  of  ' '  Lovell  the  Widower ' '  was  an  old  play 
which  he  had  written  years  ago  and  would  have  gladly  sold 
then  for  fifty  pounds,  but  which  his  publishers  did  not  think 
available.  He  now  gets  a  thousand  pounds  and  upwards  for  it. 


f: 


MBS.  KING  AND  THACKERAY  255 


In  his  next  number,  lie  told  me,  lie  means  to  give  the  true  ver 
sion  of  the  story  about  Mrs.  King  of  Charleston  and  himself. 
As  I  heard  that  story,  Thackeray  was  reported  to  have  said  to 
her,  "Mrs.  King,  I  thought  you  were  a  fast  woman/'  To 
which  she  replied,  "Mr.  Thackeray,  I  thought  you  were  a 
gentleman."  Thackeray  said  "nothing  of  the  kind  ever 
passed  between  them";  that  she  was  eternally  teasing  him 
with  her  attentions  till  finally  she  said  to  him  one  day,  "Mr. 
Thackeray,  I  was  told  I  should  like  you,  but  I  don't."  "I  re 
plied,"  said  Thackeray,  "  'Well,  I  don't  care  a  pin  if  you 
don't.'  The  other  story,"  he  said  emphatically,  "is  a  lie." 

On  the  25th  of  February  I  strolled  into  Stewart's  book-store, 
where  I  discovered  a  copy  of  the  famous  book  of  a  Spanish 
priest  named  Molinos,  entitled  ' '  Spiritual  Guide  which  disen 
tangles  the  Soul  and  brings  it  by  the  Inward  Way  to  the 
Getting  of  Perfect  Contemplation  and  the  Rich  Treasure  of 
Internal  Peace";  also  the  substance  of  several  letters  sent 
from  Italy  concerning  the  Quietists,  printed  in  the  year  1699. 
I  paid  but  half  a  guinea  for  it.  I  think  the  bookseller  did  not 
know,  what  I  did  not  discover  till  some  years  later,  that  this 
book  once  belonged  to  Charles  Wesley,  and  bears  his  signature, 
' '  C.  Wesley,  1775, ' '  on  the  title-page ;  and  on  the  first  page,  in 
the  same  handwriting,  is  written,  "The  gift  of  a  truly  noble 
friend,  Lady  H.  1775." 

I  take  it  for  granted  that ' '  Lady  H. ' '  was  Lady  Huntingdon, 
the  friend  of  Cowper  and  of  William  Law,  the  author  of  "A 
Serious  CalL"  The  acquisition  of  this  book  was  perhaps  the 
first  link  in  the  chain  of  events  which,  many  years  later,  led 
to  the  publication  of  my  book  entitled  "Molinos  the  Quietist." 

Dined  that  day  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hargreaves,  to  whom  I 
bore  a  letter  from  Mr.  Cobden.  John  Bright  and  Mr.  Lucas, 
his  brother-in-law  and  editor  of  the  Star,  were  the  lions.  The 
impression  Mr.  Bright  left  upon  me  then,  as  I  recorded  it  in 
my  diary  that  evening,  was  one  which  I  think  he  was  likely  to 
leave  upon  any  one  au  premier  abord,  but  which  a  subsequent 
and  better  acquaintance  was  sure  to  modify.  I  will  quote  it, 
however,  subject  to  all  the  qualifications  due  to  first  impres 
sions. 

Mr.  Bright 's  head  and  face  betokened  strength  of  will,  inde 
pendence,  and  a  capacity  to  execute  all  he  can  conceive ;  but  I 


256       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

judge,  from  what  I  heard  and  saw  of  him  this  evening,  that  he 
is  preeminently  practical,  not  given  to  generalization  or 
speculation  of  any  kind ;  that  he  is  very  dogmatical,  rather  too 
fond  of  praise,  rather  intolerant  of  those  who  differ  with  him, 
if  I  may  judge  by  the  freedom  with  which  he  flung  his  denun 
ciations  right  and  left ;  and  far  from  being  either  as  wise  or  as 
useful  a  man  as  Cobden.  He1  thought  the  Times  of  London  and 
the  Herald  of  New  York  were  equally  profligate  and  un 
scrupulous. 

On  the  27th  of  February  I  dined  with  William  H.  Eussell, 
where  I  met  Delane,  the  editor  of  the  Times ,  and  Eomaine, 
Secretary  of  the  Admiralty.  Delane  impressed  me  by  the 
accuracy  of  his  information  on  a  variety  of  subjects,  by  his 
quickness  to  apprehend  and  eagerness  to  appropriate  what 
seemed  true  and  new  in  what  he  heard,  and  the  correctness  of 
his  scent,  in  a  rambling  conversation,  for  what  is  reliable. 
After  he  left  I  mentioned  my  impressions  to  Eussell,  adding 
that  Delane  did  not  look  to  me  like  a  man  of  very  strong  con 
victions,  but  would  surrender  any  of  his  opinions  without  a 
pang  to  others  that  had  any  additional  merit  to  commend 
them.  Eussell,  in  partial  reply  to  this  remark,  said  that 
Delane  could  never  let  Louis  Napoleon  up,  nor  could  he  bear 
a  "pure  Whig/'  I  think  he  mentioned  another  notion 
that  Delane  was  equally  tenacious  about,  but  I  have  forgot 
ten  it. 

I  was  astonished  to  find  what  an  interest  all  these  gentlemen 
took  in  the  fight  between  Sayres  and  Heenan,  his  American 
antagonist,  which  was  to  come  off  in  a  day  or  two.  They  could 
hardly  have  seemed  more  interested  if  the  contest  had  been 
between  an  English  and  American  naval  squadron. 

The  last  week  in  February  Mrs.  Bigelow  and  I  accepted  an 
invitation  from  Mrs.  Hanbury,  a  sister  of  Mrs.  de  Bunsen,  to 
attend  a  laundry-girls'  reception  at  which  we  were  notified 
that  Lord  Shaf tesbury  had  promised  to  assist.  The  ceremonies 
were  rather  tedious,  for  the  average  Englishman  is  not  a  born 
orator,  until  Lord  Shaftesbury  took  the  parole,  which  pro 
duced  a  profound  sensation  in  the  by  no  means  inconsiderable 
assembly.  I  quote  from  my  diary : 

His  lordship  is  a  tall,  spare-looking  man,  with  much  of  the 
natural  expression  of  a  devot;  his  face  thin,  cheeks  sunken, 
complexion  sallow,  and  temperament  apparently  sluggish.  He 


SHAFTESBURY  AND  THE  SERVANT  QUESTION     257 

has,  however,  a  well-shaped  head,  the  face  of  which  wears  a 
benevolent  expression.  He  spoke  very  well ;  fluent^  easy  and 
sufficiently  choice  in  his  language.  Though  he  touched  upon 
many  social  questions  which  eccentric  and  extravagant  minds 
affect,  he  said  nothing  indicative  of  an  unhealthy  tone  of  heart 
or  mind.  Some  of  his  statements  were  interesting.  He  men 
tioned  among  other  things  that  when  he  was  in  the  Board  of 
Health  an  inquiry  was  instituted  to  ascertain  the  cost  of  wash 
ing  the  linen  of  London,  and  they  found  it  amounted  to  the 
enormous  sum  of  £5,000,000  sterling,  or  $25,000,000;  and  also 
that  three-fifths  more  soap  was  required  for  washing  in  hard 
than  in  soft  water.  He  also  stated,  though  without  seeming  to 
be  aware  of  its  bearing,  that  it  had  become  quite  difficult  to 
get  good  servants,  and  when  gotten,  still  more  difficult  to  keep 
them. 

He  spoke  of  a  young  girl  in  the  family  of  an  acquaintance, 
who  gave  notice  that  she  was  going  to  leave.  When  asked  why, 
her  only  reason  was  that  she  was  tired  of  stopping  so  long  in 
one  place.  He  spoke  of  a  footman  who  had  been  with  him  a 
couple  of  years,  who  said  he  also  must  leave.  The  earl  sent  for 
him  and  asked  him  if  he  did  not  get  what  he  wanted,  if  his 
work  was  too  hard,  wages  too  small,  or  whatever  else  might 
be  the  reason  for  his  leaving.  He  declined  to  assign  any  rea 
son,  but,  after  leaving,  told  the  butler  that  he  did  not  have  time 
enough  at  his  club.  The  earl  then  remarked  that  the  facilities 
for  travel  and  the  cheap  postage  were  rendering  it  such  an 
easy  matter  for  servants  to  find  places  that  they  went  from  one 
to  another  merely  from  curiosity— a  desire  to  see  more  of  the 
world ;  so  that  the  tenure  of  domestic  service  in  England  was 
rapidly  changing  from  what  it  used  to  be,  when  a  servant 
always  expected  on  entering  to  remain  as  long  as  his  conduct 
was  irreproachable. 

It  never  seemed  to  occur  to  his  lordship  that  the  change  of 
which  he  complained  was  rather  a  matter  for  congratulation 
than  regret ;  that  it  defined  the  difference  between  a  serf  and  a 
free  man  or  woman,  an  enlargement  of  the  market  for  labor, 
and  a  substantial  amelioration  of  the  social  condition  of  the 
domestic  wage-earner. 

At  the  close  of  the  exercises  I  was  presented  to  his  lordship, 
and  after  a  few  complimentary  words  I  remarked  that  I  was 
surprised  to  find  him  here  in  London  deploring  the  difficulties 


258        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

of  securing  satisfactory  domestic  service,  which  I  thought  was 
the  special  inconvenience  of  comparatively  new  countries  like 
our  own.  ' '  But, ' '  I  added,  ' '  does  it  not  tend  to  show  that  the 
labor  market  is  improving,  positions  more  easily  acquired,  and 
consequently  that  domestics  are  more  independent  in  England 
now  than  formerly?"  He  said  yes,  undoubtedly  that  view 
might  be  taken,  though  he  thought  the  facilities  for  changing 
places  conferred  by  cheap  postage  and  cheap  travel  had  more 
to  do  with  it.  When  a  girl  had  to  pay  a  shilling  to  send  a  note, 
it  was  a  serious  matter  to  answer  an  advertisement  by  mail, 
but  when  she  could  send  all  over  the  kingdom  for  a  penny,  it 
was  an  amusement. 

As  we  rode  home  to  our  lodgings,  my  mind  was  wholly  ab 
sorbed  in  reflections  upon  what  I  had  just  heard.  Here  was  an 
unusually  accomplished  man,  past  middle  life,  one  of  the 
hereditary  legislators  of  England,  renowned  for  his  piety  and 
his  charities  throughout  the  world,  practically  denouncing 
cheap  postage  and  cheap  travel  because  it  gave  a  considerable 
majority  of  his  countrymen  greater  facilities  for  suiting  them 
selves  with  the  places  in  which  and  the  persons  with  whom 
they  would  toil,  than  they  previously  enjoyed;  as  though  such 
a  right  of  selection  should  be  enjoyed  exclusively  by  employ 
ers.  The  privileges  of  belonging  to  a  noble  family  in  England 
are  numerous  and  very  substantial;  but  do  they  compensate 
for  their  effects  in  warping  the  judgment  and  hardening  the 
heart  against  the  truths  of  the  two  great  commandments  on 
which  hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets? 

On  the  4th  of  March  we  dined  with  Mr.  Paulton,1  and  Mr. 
Bright  came  in  after  dinner,  and  we  had  a  long  talk  about 
English  and  American  politics.  The  new  Reform  Bill,  en 
larging  the  electoral  franchise,  had  just  been  adopted.  Mr. 
Bright  said  he  thought  the  measure  would  add  about  450,000 
votes  to  the  Parliamentary  electorate. 

In  the  course  of  our  conversation  he  asked  me  if  there  was 
much  bribery  of  votes  in  America.  This  was  said  apropos  of  a 
recent  remark  of  Lord  John  Russell's  about  a  bill  he  had  in 
troduced  to  prevent  bribery  at  the  polls,  to  the  effect  that  if 
his  measure  failed,  preventive  punishment  must  no  longer  be 
relied  upon  exclusively. 

1 A  brother-in-law  of  Mr.  Hargreaves. 


A  REMARKABLE  COINCIDENCE  259 

I  replied  that  bribery  was  not  unknown  in  my  country,  but, 
under  our  system  of  universal  suffrage,  I  did  not  think  it  inter 
fered  with  representation  to  any  perceptible  extent.  I  then 
added  that  I  was  not  myself  personally  a  believer  in  penal  laws 
against  bribery ;  that  I  thought  a  vote  was  only  worth,  in  the 
eye  of  the  law  and  true  statesmanship,  to  a  man  who  sold  it, 
what  it  could  bring,  whatever  we  might  think  of  him ;  that  if  a 
man  cared  enough  about  another 's  vote  to  buy  it,  he  must  pay 
for  it  more  than  it  was  worth  to  him  who  sold  it.  The  repre 
sentative  principle,  therefore,  would  be  more  fairly  executed 
by  the  sale  than  without  it. 

Going  down  New  Oxford  Street  the  next  morning,  I  stopped 
at  Westall's  old  book-store,  549,  and  bought,  among  other 
things,  a  periodical  published  at  The  Hague  by  the  authorities 
of  Holland  and  West  Friesland,  called  the  Monthly  Mercuries, 
translated  into  English,  which  commences  with  November, 
1688,  and  comes  down  to  1708— nineteen  volumes.  I  bought  it 
for  6d.  a  volume ;  so  cheap  because  one  of  the  volumes  of  the 
series  was  wanting.  I  mention  this  because  of  a  coincidence 
such  as  rarely  happens  in  a  lifetime.  Only  a  fortnight  after 
this  purchase,  passing  through  the  Strand  in  the  afternoon,  I 
observed  an  auction  book  sale  in  progress.  I  could  not  resist 
the  temptation  to  look  in  and  see  what  kind  of  books  were 
offered.  Finding  that  the  class  which  the  auctioneer  was  offer 
ing  did  not  interest  me,  I  walked  back  toward  the  entrance, 
where  the  floor  was  strewn  with  bundles  of  pamphlets  and  odd 
volumes,  or  volumes  not  deemed  worth  cataloguing.  After 
turning  over  three  or  four  of  them  with  my  foot,  I  noticed  one 
bundle  that  seemed  to  invite  investigation.  On  examining  it 
closely,  I  was  delighted  to  find  that  a  part  of  its  contents  was 
the  missing  volume  of  the  Monthly  Mercuries  which  I  had  so 
recently  purchased  in  Oxford  Street.  I  asked  the  auctioneer  to 
put  up  the  bundle,  and  I  bought  it  for  a  couple  of  shillings.  I 
afterwards  discovered  in  the  bundle  three  or  four  books  be 
sides  the  one  I  was  in  quest  of,  which  were  well  worth,  to  me, 
all  I  paid  for  the  lot.  I  had,  therefore,  the  double  satisfaction 
of  perfecting  my  Oxford  Street  purchase,  and  at  the  same  time 
of  making  a  good  bargain,  which  is  something  that  always 
gives  satisfaction,  the  more  in  my  case  as  this  odd  volume  hap 
pened  to  be  of  a  date  which  gave  it  more  value  to  me  than  all 
the  other  volumes  of  the  set. 


260       EETEOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

8th  March. 

Dined  with  the  Eev.  Mr.  Gurney.  His  eldest  daughter  pre 
sided  at  the  table,  her  father  having  lost  his  wife  in  giving 
birth  to  his  ninth  child. 

I  only  remember  of  this  entertainment  a  slightly  unpleasant 
passage  between  myself  and  my  reverend  host  in  consequence 
of  my  venturing  to  credit  the  Emperor  Napoleon's  policy  with 
higher  motives,  or  rather  with  more  important  and  desirable 
results,  than  he  was  disposed,  or  Englishmen  generally  were 
disposed,  to  credit  him  with.  He  seemed  to  think  it  monstrous 
that  I  did  not  regard  Napoleon  III.  as  a  monster. 

I  felt  that  I  had  left  an  unfavorable  impression  upon  his 
mind  which  I  will  hardly  be  able  to  efface.  As  we  drove  home, 
my  wife  reproved  me  for  permitting  myself  to  be  drawn  into  a 
defence  of  the  Emperor  at  English  tables,  where  he  is  held  in 
such  universal  abhorrence. 

A  day  or  two  afterwards  I  called  upon  him  especially  to  ex 
press  my  regret  if  I  had  been  indiscreet  in  the  expression  of 
my  opinions  about  the  Emperor  the  other  day  at  his  table.  He 
laughed  at  the  idea,  and  seemed  surprised  that  I  should  make 
it  a  pretext  for  any  apology.  I  had  not  yet  learned  the  free 
dom  with  which  differences  of  opinion  are  tolerated  and  in 
dulged  at  English  tables. 

This  Gurney  family,  the  more  I  come  to  know  of  it,  is  won 
derful  for  its  numbers,  its  wealth,  its  intelligence  and  its  vir 
tue.  No  one  can  help  respecting  them  all,  and  families  are 
rare  in  which  so  many  virtues  have  so  much  prosperity  to 
contend  with. 

On  the  9th  of  March,  Dr.  Eoget,  the  author  of  the  best  book 
in  the  language  on  English  synonyms,  called  for  me  to  go  to  a 
meeting  of  the  Eoyal  Society.  Sir  Benjamin  Brody,  a  small 
man  but  bright  and  active,  met  us  at  the  door.  He  took  me  for 
a  relative  of  Mrs.  Abbott  Lawrence,  nee  Bigelow,  the  wife  of  a 
late  United  States  Minister  to  London.  I  had  no  opportunity 
to  undeceive  him  entirely,  as  others  required  his  attention.  He 
evidently  entertained  very  kindly  feelings  toward  Mrs.  Law 
rence. 

Faraday  was  present,  talking  science  all  the  time,  and  every 
feature  of  his  face,  even  his  hair  of  the  most  taking  silver- 
gray,  seeming  to  be  employed.  I  never  saw  a  more  earnest- 


RECEPTION  OF  PRINCE  ALBERT  261 

looking  man.  His  head  was  not  particularly  large,  but  was 
symmetrical  and  rather  round.  His  strength  seemed  to  lie 
rather  in  the  quality  than  the  quantity  of  his  brain.  He  was 
but  about  five  feet  six  inches  in  height.  While  talking  he 
seemed  to  be  totally  abstracted  from  everything  but  his  subject 
and  his  hearer. 

Babbage,  the  inventor  of  the  calculating  machine,  was  pres 
ent.  He  has  an  uncommonly  fine  head.  Sir  Eoderick  Murchi- 
son  also  has  a  pretty  good  head  and  a  remarkably  high  cravat. 

Whitworth,  the  inventor  of  the  gun,  was  present  with  his 
models.  I  heard  him  explain  its  principles  to  Wriothesley, 
who  was  present.  He  showed  us  a  ball  that  one  of  his  guns 
had  thrown  through  a  four-inch  plate  of  iron  at  a  range  of 
four  hundred  yards.  He  afterwards  explained  it  at  length  to 
Prince  Albert,  who  was  present  and  seemed  to  take  a  special 
interest  in  the  weapon.  The  prince,  though  bald,  is  a  remark 
ably  handsome  man.  His  carriage  was  erect  and  manly,  his 
figure  uncommonly  fine,  and  the  expression  of  his  face  open, 
frank  and  generous.  He  was  attended  through  the  rooms  by 
Sir  Benjamin  Brody  and  by  Mr.  Weld,  who  pointed  out  the 
objects  of  interest,  and  to  whose  explanations  he  listened  po 
litely,  if  not  attentively. 

Among  the  curious  things  shown  me  in  the  rooms,  of  which 
some  five  or  six  were  thrown  open,  was  the  first  reflecting  tele 
scope  made  by  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  and  the  dial  cut  by  him  when 
a  boy  on  a  stone  wall.  The  lines  were  not  very  distinctly 
visible  by  gaslight.  They  must  have  been  made  by  some  feeble 
instrument  like  a  knife-blade. 

There  was  a  very  large  collection  of  England's  most  eminent 
scientists  in  the  rooms,  and  perhaps  England  has  notliing  to 
show  of  which  she  has  more  reason  to  be  proud  than  the  con 
tributions  made  by  this  society  to  her  prosperity  and  strength. 
True,  it  turned  up  its  nose  at  Dr.  Franklin's  first  announce 
ment  of  his  discovery  of  the  identity  of  lightning  and  elec 
tricity,  but  it  was  not  long  in  correcting  its  judgment  and 
electing  him  a  member,  with  distinctions  and  privileges  which 
had  never  before  been  extended  to  any  member. 

I  dined  that  evening  with  Mr.  Mackintosh,  the  biographer  of 
his  father,  Sir  James,  and  with  Mrs.  Mackintosh.  Mr.  Hag- 
gins,  better  known  as  "  Jacob  Omnium "  of  the  Times,  was  the 
only  guest.  He  had  been  a  friend  of  Henry  Hallam  and  of 


262       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Count  d'Orsay.  He  was  the  tallest  well-proportioned  man  I 
ever  saw.  He  said  Eton  was  one  of  the  worst  public  schools  in 
the  world;  that  it  had  but  twenty  teachers  for  eight  hundred 
pupils,  and  of  these  but  one  for  French;  that  none  of  its 
graduates  can  spell,  or,  in  fact,  receive  any  thorough  instruc 
tion,  Mackintosh,  who  had  a  son  there,  said  in  its  defence  that 
somehow  it  had  the  knack  of  turning  out  gentlemen.  It  is  a 
painful  commentary  upon  this  remark  of  my  host  that  the  son 
here  referred  to  afterwards  died  of  delirium  tremens  in  a 
madhouse  in  Paris. 

Mr.  Mackintosh,  noting  my  familiarity  with  his  father's 
writings,  and  my  respect  for  his  genius,  presented  me  with  an 
autograph  and  very  interesting  letter  from  his  father  to  Mr. 
Canning,  which  letter  may  be  found  bound  in  Mackintosh's 
Life  of  his  father  at  The  Squirrels. 

This  letter  was  unquestionably  written  in  reply  to  some 
complimentary  words  from  Canning  about  Mackintosh's  intro 
duction  to  the  course  of  lectures  which  he  delivered  between 
the  months  of  February  and  June  of  the  year  Mackintosh's 
acknowledgment  was  written,  1799.  Canning,  though  politi 
cally  opposed  to  the  doctrines  of  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  was 
his  warm  personal  friend  and  a  fervent  admirer  of  the  "Vin- 
diciae  Gallicae, ' '  which  had  appeared  the  year  before  in  reply  to 
Burke 's  ' '  Eeflections  on  the  French  Eevolution. ' '  Canning  is 
reported  to  have  read  this  work,  on  its  coming  out,  "with  as 
much  admiration  as  he  had  ever  felt. ' ' 

To  overcome  the  well-known  aversion  of  the  English  bar 
to  innovation  and  to  secure  from  the  benchers  of  Lincoln's  Inn 
the  privilege  of  discussing  the  principle  of  law  which  in  a  cer 
tain  degree  included  the  principles  of  politics,  Canning,  in  co 
operation  with  Mackintosh,  had  exerted  his  influence  with  the 
utmost  zeal  and  with  entire  success. 


SIB  JAMES  MACKINTOSH  TO  CANNING 

STOKE  HOUSE,  3d  January,  1799. 
My  Dear  Sir: 

I  send  you  the  three  copies  of  my  Discourse  which  I  have  remain 
ing  here  &  if  I  could  find  words  I  would  endeavour  to  say  how  much 


DINE  WITH  THACKERAY  263 

your  kind  conduct  is  enhanced  by  the  generosity  of  your  language.  I 
never  meant  to  underrate  the  liberality  of  your  Friends  by  giving 
utterance  to  the  feelings  which  your  Friendship  produced  in  my  mind. 
Certainly  if  they  had  not  been  men  of  the  greatest  candour  &  of  the 
Strongest  sense  of  equity  even  your  Friendship  might  not  perhaps  have 
availed.  I  must  add  (&  I  say  without  the  least  Approach  to  flattery 
what  it  would  in  me  be  the  grossest  insincerity  to  conceal)  that  their 
approbation  is  of  much  more  value  in  my  eyes  from  their  Character  & 
extraordinary  talents  than  from  their  high  station.  I  do  not  affect 
to  be  insensible  to  the  effect  of  high  station  even  where  it  is  more  sepa 
rated  from  personal  &  natural  superiority  than  it  is  in  those  Gentle 
men  to  whom  I  allude.  If  you  will  excuse  the  pedantry  of  alluding  to 
my  own  lectures  I  may  add  that  one  of  my  objects  in  them  will  be  to 
shew  that  a  qualified  respect  "for  rank  (very  different  from  Servility) 
is  natural,  reasonable  &  useful  to  Society.  Mr.  Pitt  is  a  Man  whose 
approbation  needs  no  such  reflexions  to  enhance  its  value.  I  shall 
embrace  with  the  most  honest  &  heartfelt  pleasure  your  kind  permis 
sion  to  renew  our  intercourse  of  which  Small  as  it  was  I  always  re 
tained  the  most  agreeable  recollections.  I  shall  certainly  have  the 
pleasure  of  calling  on  you  as  soon  as  I  return  to  town  &  if  you  are  not 
afraid  of  our  smoky  blackletter  neighbourhood  I  shall  feel  myself 
gratified  &  honoured  by  seeing  you  in  Serle  Street. 
I  am 

My  Dear  Sir 

Most  truly  &  affectionately  Yours 


On  the  10th  of  March  we  dined  with  Thackeray,  and  the 
company  consisted  entirely  of  strangers,  exclusive  of  his 
family.  Among  them  were  Mrs.  Charles  Dickens ;  Dr.  Quinn, 
the  earliest  homeopathic  physician,  as  he  claimed  to  be ;  Mrs. 
Caulfield,  a  very  pretty  and  unaffected  woman  whom  I  was 
permitted  to  take  down  to  dinner ;  Sir  Henry  Havelock,  son  of 
the  famous  defender  of  Lucknow;  Mr.  Oliphant,  the  eccentric 
though  gifted  hushand  of  an  eccentric  wife;  and  some  half- 
dozen  others  whose  names  I  did  not  learn.  Thackeray,  at 
whose  side  I  was  seated,  was  suffering  with  chills  and  fever. 
He  drank  a  great  deal,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  and  garnished  his 
food  with  red  pepper  and  curry  to  excess,  for  the  purpose,  as 


264        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

he  said,  of  staving  off  or  drawing  off  the  chills.  He  succeeded 
in  bringing  on  a  profuse  perspiration  about  eleven  o  'clock ;  at 
the  same  time  he  said  he  was  tipsy,  and  talked  a  little  to  verify 
his  diagnosis. 

He  and  Quinn  throughout  the  dinner  kept  sparring  with 
each  other,  at  the  expense  to  both  of  a  good  deal  of  personal 
dignity.  Quinn  frequently  called  him  a  humbug,  and  other 
names  of  that  ilk,  with  a  degree  of  familiarity  which  could  well 
have  been  spared.  Thackeray  said  at  an  early  stage  of  the 
dinner,  "Look  here,  Quinn,  you  must  not  be  so  familiar.  My 
daughter  told  me  the  other  day  that  you  were  too  familiar." 
He  also  said  that  the  advertisements  in  the  first  number  of  his* 
magazine,  the  Cornhill,  were  a  loss  to  him,  as  they  had  calcu 
lated  on  a  sale  of  but  40,000  and  they  sold  100,000,  so  that  the 
extra  paper  consumed  all  the  profits  of  that  number. 

Mrs.  Dickens  was  not  a  handsome  woman,  though  stout, 
hearty  and  matronly;  there  was  something  a  little  doubtful 
about  her  eye,  and  I  thought  her  endowed  with  a  temper  that 
might  be  very  violent  when  roused,  though  not  easily  reusable. 
Mrs.  Caulfield  told  me  that  a  Miss  Teman— I  think  that  is  the 
name— was  the  source  of  the  difficulty  between  Mrs.  Dickens 
and  her  husband.  She  played  in  private  theatricals  with 
Dickens,  and  he  sent  her  a  portrait  in  a  brooch,  which  met  with 
an  accident  requiring  it  to  be  sent  to  the  jeweller's  to  be 
mended.  The  jeweller,  noticing  Mr.  Dickens 's  initials,  sent  it 
to  his  house.  Mrs.  Dickens 's  sister,  who  had  always  been  in 
love  with  him  and  was  jealous  of  Miss  Teman,  told  Mrs.  Dick 
ens  of  the  brooch,  and  she  mounted  her  husband  with  comb 
and  brush.  This,  no  doubt,  was  Mrs.  Dickens 's  version  in  the 
main. 

My  wife  told  me  that  Oliphant  was  expressing  to  Miss 
Thackeray  his  admiration  of  my  wig.  If  he  could  get  one  like 
it— he  is  quite  bald— he  would  wear  it.  Miss  Thackeray  replied 
that  she  thought  I  did  not  wear  a  wig.  He  offered  to  bet  with 
her  a  pair  of  gloves  that  I  did.  The  bet  was  referred  to  Mrs. 
Bigelow  to  settle,  which  she  was  no  doubt  proud  to  do  in  favor 
of  Miss  Thackeray. 

A  few  evenings  later  I  saw  Miss  Teman  at  the  Haymarket 
Theatre,  playing  with  Buckstone  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Charles 
Mathews.  She  seemed  rather  a  small  cause  for  such  a  serious 
result— passably  pretty  and  not  much  of  an  actress. 


FITZ-GREENE  HALLECK  265 

On  the  14th  of  March  I  dined  with  M.  Chatelaine,  to  whom  I 
had  been  presented  by  M.  de  Tassy,  the  professor  of  Oriental 
literature  at  the  Sorbonne.  The  company  consisted  mostly  of 
journalists.  Among  them  was  a  Mr.  Griswold,  one  of  Thack 
eray's  staff  on  the  CornJiill  and  also  an  occasional  contributor 
to  the  Saturday  Review.  He  proved  to  be  a  profound  believer 
in  the  English  stratification  of  society  and  in  conventional 
standards  of  merit,  social  and  moral.  He  professed  to  detest 
Bonner  of  the  New  York  Ledger,  who,  he  thought,  ought  to  be 
put  down.  He  did  not  seem  to  comprehend  me  when  I  said  I 
was  proud  of  the  Ledger  as  an  illustration  of  the  extraordi 
nary  development  of  a  common  journeyman  printer's  capacity 
for  usefulness  in  my  city: 

"But  what  does  it  do?"  said  he.  "What  does  it  contribute 
to  the  literature  of  the  world?" 

I  replied  that  it  paid  literary  men  of  the  first  class  better 
than  they  were  paid  anywhere  else ;  that  by  its  vast  circulation 
it  brought  the  brains  of  the  highest  and  lowest  intellectual 
strata  of  society  into  contact  and  sympathy,  and,  as  an  illus 
tration  of  this,  had  published  within  a  month  a  better  poem 
than  had  appeared  in  the  English  press  in  the  previous  thirty 
years.  I  referred  to  "The  Cloud  in  the  Way"  of  Mr.  Bryant, 
which,  of  course,  he  had  not  seen. 

At  the  request  of  M.  Chatelaine,  I  sent  some  of  his  transla 
tions  into  French  verse  of  some  of  their  poems  to  Bryant  and 
Halleck.  From  Halleck  I  received  the  following  characteristic 
reply : 


FITZ-GEEENE  HALLECK  TO  BIGELOW 

GUILFOBD,  CONNECTICUT, 

May  24,  1860. 
My  dear  Sir: 

A  "whoreson  cold,"  wanting  the  dignity  of  that  of  Justice 
Shallow's  conscript,  "Peter  Bullcalf  of  the  Green,"  which  was 
caught  by  ringing  in  the  "King's  affairs  upon  his  coronation 
day,"  has,  to  my  exceeding  regret,  compelled  me  to  postpone 
my  answer  to  your  letter. 
With  my  returning  strength  I  hasten  to  thank  you  for  your 


266       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

continued  remembrance  of  me,  preserved,  as  it  so  flatteringly 
has  been,  amid  the  million  distractions  of  your  active  life,  and 
with  a  distance  so  wide  between  us,  alike  of  time  and  space,  of 
years  and  miles. 

"Much  of  wild  and  wonderful' *  you  have  doubtless  met  with 
in  your  "sightseeing"  pilgrimages  abroad,  pilgrimages  which 
I  hope  have  proved  pleasant  and  profitable  to  you;  but  pray 
tell  me,  and  tell  me  candidly,  if,  in  all  the  ' i  Sights ' '  detailed  in 
Murray's  handbooks,  those  you  have  seen,  and  those  you  have 
wisely  refrained  from  seeing,  in  all  the  Museums  you  have 
visited  from  the  British  to  Barnum's,  have  you  met  a  greater 
curiosity  than  the  Document  which,  to  my  infinite  instruction 
and  delight,  you  have  done  me  the  kindness  to  forward  with 
your  letter. 

Instruction,  for  it  enables  me  to  appreciate,  most  feelingly, 
the  force  of  Burns '  lines, 

' '  0,  would  some  power  the  gif tie  gie  us 
To  see  ourselves  as  others  see  us!" 

and  admonishes  me  (reversing  the  medal  of  Falstaff's  expres 
sion),  of  the  heinousness  of  my  twofold  guilt,  that  of  uttering 
Nonsense  myself,  and  causing  the  utterance  of  Nonsense  by 
others. 

And  Delight,  by  irresistibly  reminding  me  of  the  hearty 
laugh  with  which  I  greeted  the  appearance  of  Liston  some 
years  ago  in  London,  when  he  came  upon  the  stage  mounted 
upon  a  Donkey,  and  repeated  George  Coleman's  lines  begin 
ning,  "Behold  a  pair  of  us"!!  and  by  bringing  home  to  my 
own  "business  and  bosom,"  the  scene  in  the  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream,  "Enter  Bottom  with  an  ass's  head,"  and 
Quince 's  exclamation,  '  '  Oh  Bottom,  thou  art  TRANSLATED  ! ! " 
and  thereby  placing  me,  in  all  the  pride  of  Authorship,  upon 
the  top  step  of  the  ladder  of  literary  ambition. 

During  my  recent  illness  in  New  York,  Mr.  Bryant  did  me 
the  honor  to  make  my  sick  room  a  pleasant  one  by  frequently 
calling  upon  me.  I  wish  you  had  been  present  when  he  read 
the  translation.  His  appreciation  of  the  fun  of  the  thing  was 
visible  in  his  eyes.  They  sparkled  like  stars  in  a  frosty  sky 
in  the  absence  of  moon  and  cloud :  a  study  for  an  artist. 

Allow  me  to  hope  to  hear  very  soon  from  your  pen  that  this 


A.D.  1819 


A.D. 1901 


Late  Queen  of  England  and  Empress  of  India 


QUEEN  VICTORIA'S  DRAWING-ROOM  267 

letter  has  reached  you,  and  tell  us  when  we  are  to  have  the 
pleasure  of  welcoming  you  back  among  us. 

I  take  your  expressed  leave  to  enclose  a  letter  for  Mons. 
Chatelaine.  Will  you,  after  perusing  it,  have  the  goodness. to 
forward  it  to  him  and  greatly  oblige,  my  dear  Sir, 

Yours  very  gratefully 


I  venture  here  to  quote  a  few  lines  from  my  diary  of  the 
period : 

Saturday,  March  24th. 

This  was  the  day  for  the  Queen's  drawing-room,  to  which 
my  wife  and  I  had  been  invited.  We  joined  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Dallas  and  their  daughters  at  the  embassy  a  little  before  one. 
The  ladies  then  went  through  a  sort  of  rehearsal  of  the  im 
pending  ceremony.  We  then  drove  off  to  St.  James's  Palace, 
where  Mr.  Dallas  presented  us  to  Mr.  Gust,  the  master  of 
ceremonies,  who  also  presented  us  to  Lady  Eussell,  whose 
husband  was  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs.  Presently  a  proces 
sion  of  Blue-coat  Boys  passed  in  to  be  presented  to  the  Queen, 
one  of  their  immemorial  annual  prerogatives. 

It  soon  became  our  turn,  Mrs.  Dallas  preceding  with  Mrs. 
Bigelow,  and  at  the  length  of  their  trains  behind,  Mr.  Dallas 
and  I  followed. 

After  we  had  been  presented,  Mr.  Dallas  and  I  found  our 
selves  standing  near  the  Queen,  whom  of  course  I  scruti 
nized  very  closely  as  long  as  I  had  an  opportunity  of  doing  so. 
She  seemed  a  very  short  woman  with  a  dumpy  figure,  though 
erect,  no  grace  of  outline.  Her  complexion  was  florid,  and 
with  the  least  provocation  grows  red  all  over;  her  eyes  gray 
and  very  pop.  She  peels  her  teeth  to  the  very  top  of  her  gums 
when  she  laughs,  which  is  not  becoming  at  all,  as  her  front 
teeth  are  quite  too  prominent  to  bear  such  exposure.  Her 
smile  is  pleasant,  but  when  she  puts  on  a  severe  or  cold  ex 
pression  she  looks  as  though  her  features  had  been  accustomed 
to  it.  I  was  led  to  suspect  that  her  temper  was  capricious. 
Some  who  approached  her— a  few— she  kissed;  others,  English 
ladies,  kissed  her  hand.  The  gentleman  with  the  gold  stick 


268        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

called  off  the  name  of  each  person  to  the  Queen  as  he  or  she 
approached. 

The  Princess  Alice  seemed,  as  she  stood  beside  her  father, 
pretty  and  fascinating.  There  was  an  archness  about  her.  ex 
pression—a  mischievousness,  such  as  is  meant  when  the  term 
is  intended  to  be  complimentary— that  quite  captivated  me. 
Her  beauty,  though  of  a  different  character,  seemed  to  be 
nearly  or  quite  as  attractive  as  that  of  the  Empress  Eugenie. 
She  has  a  less  purely  sanguine  temperament  than  her  mother 's 
—more  of  her  father's,  apparently;  her  features  are  regular, 
she  has  a  fine  figure;  looks  about  eighteen  years  of  age,  and 
much  resembles  the  Prince  of  Wales  as  he  appeared  to  us 
when  in  America.  There  are  no  evidences  of  superior  mental 
accomplishments  in  her  face,  though  she  is  equally  free  from 
traces  of  inferiority  in  that  respect. 

Lord  Palmerston,  Mr.  Gladstone  and  Sidney  Herbert  were 
standing  near  us.  I  studied  Gladstone  carefully.  He  has  the 
nervous,  bilious  temperament ;  black  hair  and  bright  black  eyes ; 
a  square  forehead  which  does  not  rise  as  much  in  the  region 
which  phrenologists  assign  as  the  abode  of  the  moral  senti 
ments  as  one  could  wish ;  a  rapid,  nervous  motion,  and  every 
thing  about  him  rather  more  suggestive  of  a  French  or  Italian 
than  of  a  Saxon  origin.  His  face  is  strongly  marked  with  the 
lines  of  thought,  and  in  his  conversation  he  occasionally  be 
trays  the  impression  that  his  mind  was  pursuing  a  train  of 
thought  beyond  the  area  prescribed  by  his  interlocutor. 

His  wife  and  Lady  Palmerston  were  also  present,  standing 
side  by  side.  Miss  Gladstone  was  among  those  who  were  pre 
sented  to  the  Queen  on  this  occasion.  Mrs.  Gladstone  is  tall, 
thinnish,  with  spare  features,  about  forty  years  of  'age,  and 
not  exactly  handsome.  To  my  surprise,  her  eyes  did  not  seem 
to  work  in  harmony,  at  least  that  was  my  impression. 

Mrs.  Palmerston  is  near  or  quite  sixty.  Her  lower  eyelids 
are  baggy,  and  her  face  looks  a  good  deal  battered,  as  if  it 
had  been  required  in  its  time  to  express  a  great  variety  of 
strong  emotions. 

Palmerston  is  a  marvel.  Though  over  eighty,  he  seemed  as 
perfectly  preserved  as  any  man  in  the  room,  and  a  life  safe  to 
bet  on  for  at  least  twenty  years  to  come.  His  head  is  remark 
ably  well  shaped;  the  moral  and  the  intellectual  regions  seem 
equally  well  developed,  notwithstanding  the  reports  of  his 


A  SUNDAY  IN  EDINBURGH  269 

enemies.  One  of  the  strangest  things  about  him  is  the  fact 
that,  with  his  vast  experience  in  Parliament,  he  still  stammers 
and  boggles  when  he  speaks,  with  all  the  hesitancy  of  a  new 
member. 

After  the  presentations  were  over— they  occupied  about  an 
hour— the  Queen  and  her  suite  withdrew,  and  we  immediately 
followed  her  example. 

On  Thursday  evening,  the  29th  of  March,  we  left  London  for 
Scotland,  where  we  spent  about  three  weeks,  seeing  as  much 
of  the  country  as  we  could  in  so  short  a  time. 

The  first  Sunday  after  our  arrival'  in  Edinburgh  we  went  to 
hear  the  Eev.  Mr.  Hanna,  the  son-in-law  and  biographer  of 
Dr.  Chalmers.  The  house,  though  full,  was  by  no  means 
crowded.  His  was  what  they  call  here  the  Free  Church  as  dis 
tinguished  from  the  Established  Kirk  of  Scotland;  for  the 
Presbyterians  here  have  their  Established  Church  as  well  as 
the  Episcopalians.  Dr.  Chalmers  has  the  credit  of  leading  in 
this  rebellion.  Hanna  had  a  head  much  like  Theodore  Park 
er's;  a  slight  brogue— scarcely  enough  to  betray  his  nation 
ality;  the  expression  of  his  face  severe  and  unsightly.  His 
address  was  as  deliberate  and  steady  as  if  he  were  a  piece  of 
machinery.  He  used  very  little  rhetoric  and  betrayed  very  lit 
tle  emotion.  He  gave  us,  however,  a  very  impressive  discourse. 

In  the  afternoon  we  went  to  hear  Mr.  Guthrie ;  he  and  Hanna 
were  the  most  prominent  clergymen  in  Scotland  at  that  time. 
He  continued  a  previous  address  from  Luke:  "And  Jesus 
increased  in  favor  with  God  and  man."  His  rhetoric  was 
very  fine.  I  thought  it  the  best  I  had  then  ever  heard  .in  the 
pulpit.  He  closed  with  some  practical  observations,  in  the 
course  of  which  he  compared  the  plate  of  the  photographer 
when  properly  prepared  for  receiving  the  expression  of  the 
person  exposed,  to  the  gradual  transmission  of  the  lineaments 
of  Jesus  to  the  soul  of  the  regenerated  Christian  who  contem 
plates  him  devoutly  and  with  a  desire  to  comprehend  his 
beauty  and  perfections.  His  discourse  abounded  in  good 
things  like  this,  and  he  delivered  them  uncommonly  well. 

He  had  an  uncomfortable  way  of  wiping  his  nose  with  his 
hand;  the  more  frequent  from  his  great  sensibility,  which, 
several  times  in  the  course  of  the  two  sermons  I  have  heard 
from  him,  found  expression  in  tears. 


270       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

While  at  Ayr  doing  homage  to  Scotland's  greatest  lyric 
poet,  I  received  tickets  for  the  installation  ceremonies  of  Glad 
stone  at  the  University  of  Edinburgh.  For  this  function  I  was 
obliged  to  leave  Ayr  on  Saturday  and  spend  the  night  and 
following  Sunday  at  Glasgow,  as  no  trains  in  Scotland  were 
run  on  Sunday.  Though  Edinburgh  is  only  an  hour  by  train 
from  Glasgow,  I  could  not  get  there  till  Monday  morning. 


MR.  GLADSTONE'S  INSTALLATION  AS  LORD  RECTOR  OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  EDINBURGH 

AYE,  April  17,  1860. 

Yesterday  was  a  great  day  in  the  British  Athens,  for  it  was 
to  witness  the  installation  of  Mr.  Gladstone  as  lord  rector  of 
the  university,  and  no  event  short  of  the  landing  of  a  French 
army  in  the  Clyde  could  have  been  more  absorbing.  I  confess 
I  shared  in  the  general  feeling.  Only  a  few  days  before  I  left 
London,  one  of  the  most  prominent  members  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  not  precisely  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  school  of  poli 
tics  either,  directed  my  attention  to  him  and  said,  '  '  That  is  the 
most  remarkable  man  that  ever  sat  in  this  House ' ' ;  and  added 
after  a  very  slight  pause, ' '  Take  him  all  together,  certainly  his 
career  through  the  present  session  has  been  a  succession  of 
administrative  and  dialectical  triumphs  quite  unparalleled 
within  the  recollection  of  any  of  the  present  members  of  the 
British  Parliament.  He  has  astonished  every  one  by  the  skill 
with  which  he  has  taken  his  ground,  and  by  his  resources  in 
defending  it.  His  opponents,  who  used  to  be  great  men  and 
formidable  dialecticians,  seem  to  have  dwarfed  under  the  spell 
of  his  eloquence,  and  even  his  own  chieftains,  Palmerston  and 
Russell,  find  themselves,  without  suspecting  the  change,  re 
volving  as  satellites  around  him.  Indeed,  Brougham  is 
reported  to  have  said  that  Gladstone's  speech  on  the  Budget 
was  the  finest  speech  he  ever  heard  in  Parliament,  except  his 
own  in  defence  of  Queen  Caroline. ' ' 

I  thought  the  occasion  would  be  as  favorable  as  any  that 
would  be  likely  to  offer  for  me  to  see  and  hear  Mr.  Gladstone 


MR.  GLADSTONE  AS  LORD  RECTOR     271 

to  the  best  advantage,  and  so,  at  considerable  inconvenience 
and  expense,  I  secured  a  ticket  and  went  up.  As  this  is  the 
first  lord  rector  the  University  of  Edinburgh  has  ever  chosen, 
a  local  council  having  hitherto  managed  its  affairs,  it  became 
necessary  to  provide  a  robe  for  the  incumbent,  and  the  splen 
dor  and  expense  of  this  integument  has  been  the  subject  of  the 
most  inflammatory  gossip  for  several  days.  The  last  report 
that  reached  me  before  I  saw  it  was  that  it  could  stand  alone, 
so  stiffened  was  it  with  gold.  The  rumors,  however,  unlike 
stones,  had  gathered  by  rolling,  for  it  had  very  little  gold ;  the 
manchettes  were  purple  velvet,  and  the  rest  of  some  suitable 
black  fabric.  I  afterwards  learned  that  the  whole  affair  cost 
fifty  guineas,  to  meet  which  expense  each  student  was  required 
to  pay  two  shillings  for  his  ticket.  It  was  a  little  large,  and 
the  orator  had  great  difficulty  in  keeping  it  on  and  in  preserv 
ing  the  freedom  of  his  hands  and  arms,  but  on  the  whole  it 
disfigured  him  as  little  as  such  trappings  could  disfigure  any 
one,  perhaps. 

The  doors  were  opened  at  eleven,  an  hour  before  the  exer 
cises  were  to  begin.  I  was  warned  to  be  early,  and  conse 
quently  went  among  the  first.  The  room  soon  filled,  students 
composing  the  bulk  of  the  audience.  I  soon  had  evidence  that 
students  in  Scotland  are  very  much  like  students  in  all  other 
parts  of  the  world.  Every  person  that  came  in  related  in  any 
way  to  the  university  had  a  special  reception;  some  with 
cheers,  not  a  few  with  hisses  and  groans,  for  these  occasions 
are  the  grand  assize,  where  students  avenge  the  real  or  imagi 
nary  wrongs  they  haVe  sustained  from  their  superiors,  who 
are  in  all  other  ways  inaccessible  to  them.  When  Professor 
Swinton  came  in  he  was  greeted  with  a  storm  of  hisses,  because 
in  a  snowballing  entente  last  winter  he  had  threatened  to  call 
in  the  police.  When  Professor  Blackie  came  in  he  was  received 
with  clapping  of  hands  and  shouts  of  laughter  provoked  by  his 
professional  cap,  which,  in  a  spirit  of  somewhat  extravagant 
nationality,  he  had  edged  with  tartan  plaid.  The  poor  little 
man  was  glad  to  get  his  cap  off  his  head  and  out  of  sight  as 
soon  as  possible.  Pretty  soon  John  Hope,  the  great  temper 
ance  authority  in  Edinburgh,  appeared.  He  was  greeted,  as 
temperance  is  everywhere,  with  the  most  friendly  and  with  the 
most  unfriendly  demonstrations  at  the  same  time.  The  ladies, 
too,  received  more  than  their  share  of  embarrassing  attentions. 


272       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Some  of  them  had  to  cross  in  the  rear  of  the  stage  along  some 
elevated  seats  with  no  screen  or  bench  in  front.  The  walk  was 
so  narrow  that  their  crinolines  were  pushed  by  the  bench  quite 
to  one  side.  These  occasions  always  brought  down  the  house, 
to  the  infinite  distress  of  the  unhappy  victim,  who  often  sat 
down  blushing  to  the  roots  of  her  hair,  and  not  suspecting  the 
cause  of  these  extraordinary  attentions. 

When  finally  Sir  David  Brewster,  the  vice-chancellor  of  the 
university,  now  quite  a  feeble  old  man,  arrived,  preceded  by 
the  mace-bearer  and  followed  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  the  whole 
house  arose  and  the  applause  was  deafening  and  continuous. 
It  was  not  certain  that  the  reception  of  Mr.  Gladstone  would 
be  unanimous,  for  he  was  elected  by  a  comparatively  small 
majority  over  a  large  and  heated  minority;  but  I  heard  several 
who  voted  for  his  rival  say  that  they  were  now  glad  Gladstone 
was  chosen;  and  his  reception  showed  that  that  feeling  was 
pretty  much  unanimous.  This  interested  me,  as  an  evidence 
of  the  impression  which  his  Parliamentary  achievements  dur 
ing  the  last  few  months  have  made  upon  these  secluded  boys. 

The  exercises  were  opened  with  prayer,  and  then  the  degree 
of  LL.D.  was  conferred  upon  Mr.  Gladstone  and  six  other 
gentlemen,  all  Scotchmen,  I  believe,  except  the  Eev.  H.  L. 
Mansel,  professor  of  moral  and  metaphysical  philosophy  in 
Oxford.  Each  was  presented  for  the  degree  by  Mr.  Swinton, 
professor  of  law  and  chairman  of  the  Senatus  Academicus, 
which  make  the  selections  for  these  honors,  the  nominations 
being  accompanied  by  a  short  and  eulogistic  speech  setting 
forth  the  gentleman's  claims  to  such  literary  distinction. 

This  over,  Mr.  David  Hall,  one  of  the  students,  and  on  their 
behalf,  came  forward  to  present  Mr.  Gladstone  to  the  vice- 
chancellor  as  the  students'  choice  for  rector.  He  did  it  in  a 
neat  and  graceful  speech,  auspicious  of  still  better  things  in 
the  years  to  come. 

Mr.  Gladstone  then  took  his  position  by  the  desk,  laid  down 
a  pile  of  manuscript,  pulled  out  of  his  pocket  something  which, 
from  my  proximity,  I  afterwards  discovered  was  a  little  flask 
with  a  cork  that  unscrewed,  and  a  false  bottom  that  made  a 
cup ;  emptied  something  into  the  cup,  and  then  addressed  him 
self  to  the  work  of  the  day. 

His  appearance  is  eminently  prepossessing.  He  has  a  fine 
figure,  rather  spare,  without  being  thin,  and  a  bilious,  nervous 


A.I).  1809 


William  Ewart  Gladstone 


A.D.  1898 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  GLADSTONE  273 

temperament,  so  admirably  blended  that  it  is  difficult  to  say 
which  element  predominates,  for,  while  his  eyes  are  black  and 
sparkle  like  jets,  his  hair  is  only  dark ;  in  his  youth  it  might 
have  been  quite  light.  Though  still  a  comparatively  young 
man,  however — he  is  just  fifty-one — the  deep  lines  of  his  face, 
not  to  speak  of  the  thinning  of  his  hair  upon  the  top  of  his 
head,  show  that  he  has  led  a  laborious  and  thoughtful  life.  His 
complexion  is  pale,  and  the  expression  of  his  features  un 
changeable.  Had  a  photographer  taken  his  likeness  every  sec 
ond  from  his  first  entrance  into  the  hall  until  he  had  more  than 
half  finished  his  address,  it  would  have  been  difficult  to  have 
detected  the  slightest  variation  in  the  several  impressions. 
He  bowed  slightly  to  applause  once  or  twice,  but  not  a  change 
even  of  color  was  apparent  on  his  marble  features.  He  has  a 
square  head,  rather  flat,  for  my  taste,  on  top— much  such  a 
head  as  Walter  Scott's  would  be  if  divided  horizontally,  about 
midway  between  the  highest  point  of  the  skull  and  the  base  of 
the  brain,  and  the  upper  section  removed.  The  residuum 
would  give  very  nearly  the  proportion,  though  perhaps  not  the 
bulk,  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  head.  The  forehead  is  a  little  more 
than  medium  height  and  breadth,  and  shaped  more  like 
Brougham 's  than  that  of  any  other  public  man  that  I  think  of. 
It  is  like  a  square,  solid  block  placed  over  his  eyes  like  an  archi 
trave.  His  voice  is  melodious  and  penetrating,  with  ample 
range  for  any  oratorical  purposes.  His  declamation  disap 
pointed  me.  He  measured  out  his  cadences  a  little  in  the 
school-boy  fashion,  and  I  should  have  said,  if  I  had  heard  him 
then  for  the  first  time,  knowing  nothing  about  him,  that  he  was 
not  a  practised  speaker.  It  was  obvious  that  this  was  partly, 
if  not  entirely,  owing  to  the  necessity  of  reading  his  discourse, 
for  when  he  got  through  its  historical  matter  and  returned 
home,  as  it  were,  to  his  own  country  and  his  own  time,  he 
seemed  emancipated  from  this  thraldom,  and  then  it  was  not 
difficult  to  comprehend  the  secret  of  his  forensic  powers. 

I  will  not  attempt  to  describe  or  to  analyze  his  discourse. 
The  first  half  of  it  received  no  applause,  and  indeed  at  one 
time  I  feared  he  was  losing  his  hold  upon  his  audience  alto 
gether.  Abelard  saved  him.  From  this  point  he  began  to 
grow  before  his  audience,  though  they  were  not  enthusiastic 
until  he  got  off  of  his  text— universities  in  the  abstract— and 
upon  the  University  of  Edinburgh  in  particular,  and  the  topics 


274        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

incident  to  the  occasion.  He  seemed  to  labor  with  his  piece  de 
resistance,  and  failed  to  satisfy  his  audience  that  he  had  any 
thing  to  say  about  universities  in  general  worth  the  time  and 
trouble  he  was  taking  to  say  it.  Nor  do  I  think  he  removed 
that  doubt  altogether,  though  in  print  it  may  appear  differ 
ently.  The  impression  left  upon  my  mind  by  the  whole  per 
formance  was  that  he  was  not  inspired  properly  by  the 
occasion;  that  he  wrote  about  universities  because  it  seemed 
to  be  the  most  obvious  topic  for  a  man  going  to  address  a 
university  audience,  and  without  having  anything  special  to 
communicate ;  he  trusted,  as  he  has  learned  that  he  may  safely 
do,  to  his  skill  in  handling  commonplaces,  and,  if  I  may  use  the 
expression  in  no  offensive  sense,  bastard  generalization,  for 
his  success.  Of  course,  with  his  other  cares  and  employments, 
he  could  not  be  expected  to  make  the  same  preparation  for  this 
occasion  that  he  would  have  done  if  he  had  his  mark  in  the 
world  yet  to  make ;  but  I  think  it  will  be  found  that  Mr.  Glad 
stone  's  power,  like  the  late  Daniel  Webster's,  consists  more  in 
his  skill  in  using  material  than  in  his  ability  to  provide  it ;  that 
he  is  a  manufacturer  rather  than  a  producer,  and  his  wonder 
ful  faculty  of  clothing  and  adorning  an  idea  or  doctrine  that  is 
put  into  his  hands  has  tempted  him  to  the  publication  of  a 
great  deal  of  learned  nonsense,  which  would  never  have  seen 
the  light  if  he  had  anything  like  the  same  capacity  for  discov 
ering  truths  that  he  has  for  propagating  them  when  dis 
covered.  His  recent  success  in  Parliament  is  owing  mainly  to 
his  good  fortune  in  having  near  him  men  capable  of  thinking 
for  him,  of  giving  him  political  lights  which  are  new  and  kindle 
all  his  enthusiasm.  He  made  no  such  figure  in  '52,  when  he 
was  the  oracle  of  Toryism,  the  disciple  of  Sir  Eobert  Peel,  and 
the  exponent  of  Oxford  Puseyism,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
that  straw  had  all  been  threshed,  it  gave  no  play  to  his  remark 
able  powers  of  exposition,  his  manufacturing  genius.  But  as 
a  member  of  the  Government  he  has  been  brought  into  contact 
with  and  partially  into  a  state  of  dependence  upon  the  Liberal 
party,  who  are  counselled  by  two  or  three  of  the  most  in 
genious  and  philosophic  politicians  in  England.  They  supply 
him  with  ideas,  and  he  is  fascinated  by  the  scope  afforded  to 
his  resources  for  their  development  and  propagation.  The 
consequence  is,  that,  from  being  one  of  the  most  benighted  of 
Tories,  with  both  his  eyes  in  the  back  side  of  his  head,  he  has 


GLADSTONE'S  SPEECH  275 

become  one  of  the  most  decided  progressives  in  Parliament ;  is 
professing  the  most  unbounded  faith  in  the  people;  has  with 
drawn  from  the  conservative  club  in  which  he  was  cradled,  and 
I  doubt  not  he  would  to-morrow,  if  compelled  to  choose  be 
tween  the  two,  much  sooner  take  his  chances  in  the  future  with 
Cobden  and  Bright  than  with  Palmers  ton  and  Peel. 

I  venture  to  say  that  a  perusal  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  discourse 
yesterday  will  go  far  to  sustain  the  opinion  I  have  expressed 
of  him,  that  he  has  very  moderate  creative  or  constructive 
faculties,  but  that  his  power,  like  that  of  a  mill,  consists  mainly 
in  his  ability  to  convert  and  adapt  the  material  put  into  it  by 
others,  to  the  use  and  convenience  of  society. 

The  discourse  of  the  new  rector  was  interrupted  by  one  inci 
dent  which  must  have  pained  any  American.  When  he  came  to 
speak  of  the  council  who  participate  in  the  government  of  the 
university,  a  volley  of  hisses  assailed  him  from  every  part  of 
the  house.  He  paused  a  moment,  and  then  attempted  to 
proceed;  the  hisses  were  renewed  louder  than  ever.  He 
shrugged  his  shoulders,  as  if  he  would  say,  "Well,  there  is  no 
mistaking  what  you  would  be  at— you  evidently  don't  like 
these  councilmen. ' '  And  when  silence  was  partially  restored 
he  said :  ' '  Gentlemen,  I  have  told  you  that  the  university  has 
always  been  famous  as  the  bulwark  of  free  discussion ;  I  hope, 
therefore,  you  will  allow  me  to  proceed  with  what  I  have  to 
say." 

His  expression,  which  was  lighted  up  with  a  smile  when  he 
commenced  this  sentence,  became  stern  and  dignified  toward 
its  close,  and  the  effect  was  instantaneous.  Perfect  silence  was 
instantly  established,  and  he  went  on  to  be  interrupted  only  by 
applause.  I  felt  sorry  for  the  councillors,  who  sat  conspicu 
ously  upon  the  platform,  and  whose  offence  consisted  merely 
in  not  being  literary  men  or  distinguished  in  any  way  except 
as  members  of  the  city  council.  I  heard  one  of  the  lads  near 
me,  a  bright  and  promising  little  fellow,  when  the  audience 
was  collecting,  calling  out  to  one  of  his  companions, ' '  We  must 
hiss  the  council  when  they  come  in."  I  asked  why,  and  he 
said  that  they  were  not  men  of  any  literary  attainments,  and 
he  thought  it  shocking  that  they  should  sit  down  to  the  same 
council  table  or  in  the  same  room  with  Mr.  Gladstone,  or  have 
anything  to  do  with  the  university. 

This  all  seemed  to  me  excessively  bad  manners,  and  yet  I 


276        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

could  not  blame  the  boys  much,  for  they  are  brought  up  to 
respect  arbitrary  and  false  standards  of  merit  in  every  depart 
ment  of  life ;  the  law  creates  them  and  usage  sanctions  them, 
and  it  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  a  body  of  youngsters 
educated  to  the  use  of  these  false  standards  should,  from  the 
very  sincerity  and  guilelessness  of  their  nature,  betray  the 
most  revolting  injustice  and  blackguardism;  for  it  is  impos 
sible  that  they  can  be  observed,  in  good  faith,  with  any  other 
result. 

The  close  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  address  was  quite  impressive. 
He  quoted  from  the  addresses  delivered  by  Brougham  and  Sir 
Eobert  Peel  at  their  installation  as  rectors  of  Glasgow  Uni 
versity,  but  no  allusion  was  made  in  any  way  to  Macaulay. 
Evidently  the  wounds  left  by  the  review  of  the  book  on  Church 
and  State  are  not  yet  healed,  for  the  opportunity  of  paying  a 
tribute  to  the  memory  of  one  who  had  so  recently  represented 
the  city  of  Edinburgh  in  Parliament,  who  had  done  as  much 
as  any  one  to  make  these  installation  ceremonies  famous,  and 
who  had  just  been  called  away  by  death  from  a  work  which, 
though  unfinished,  is  as  imperishable  as  the  language  in  which 
it  is  written,  was  one  which  an  orator,  under  most  circum 
stances,  would  have  been  but  too  happy  to  avail  himself  of.  It 
was  wise  for  Mr.  Gladstone  to  exclude  such  a  train  of  associa 
tions  from  an  occasion  of  which  he  was  the  hero. 

The  orator  spoke  just  an  hour  and  a  half,  refreshing  himself 
occasionally  from  the  little  cup  to  which  I  have  referred,  and 
which  he  preferred  to  the  tumblers  standing  beside  him,  for 
no  reason  that  I  can  imagine  except  that  it  did  not  betray  the 
color  of  its  contents.  He  evidently  had  no  confidence  that  his 
audience  were  gentlemen  enough  to  turn  their  backs  if  he  had 
filled  a  glass. 

I  quote  from  my  diary : 

Eeturning  from  Scotland  on  the  23d  of  April,  we  visited 
Chatsworth,  having  been  favored  with  an  order  from  Sir 
Joseph  Paxton  to  its  keeper.  The  park  was  the  finest  I  had 
ever  seen.  There  were  at  least  three  different  flocks  of  deer 
grazing  in  sight  as  we  entered;  I  counted  seventy  in  one  of 
them.  There  was  little  within  the  house  to  surprise  one  who 
had  seen  the  palaces  of  the  Continent ;  but  it  is  a  superb  dwell 
ing  for  a  private  gentleman,  though  he  occupies  it  very  little. 


VISIT  THE  RESIDENCE  OF  ADDISON          277 

He  was  stopping  at  the  time  at  one  of  his  estates  in  Ireland. 
The  river  Derwent  winds  through  the  valley  in  front  of  the 
house,  and  more  than  doubles  the  beauty  of  the  scene  from  it, 
for  which  art  has  done  its  utmost. 

We  stopped  to  take  a  look  at  the  kitchen-garden  near  Sir 
Joseph  Paxton's  former  residence.  We  saw  here  what  I  still 
remember  as  the  most  remarkable  feature  of  this  remarkable 
property.  It  was  the  largest  peach-tree  in  England,  and 
therefore  much  the  largest  in  the  world.  It  was  growing  under 
glass.  Our  guide  said  it  was  probably  one  hundred  years  old, 
and  ordinarily  yielded  ninety  dozen  peaches  annually.  Its 
branches  extended  a  distance  of  seventy  feet. 

On  our  journey  toward  London  we  were  very  much  inter 
ested  in  a  visit  we  made  on  the  26th  of  April  to  Bilton  Hall, 
once  the  property  and  the  residence  of  Addison,  and  where  his 
daughter  lived  all  her  life,  upward  of  threescore  and  ten  years. 
It  is  a  charming  old  place  and  shaded  with  many  of  the  finest 
old  oaks  I  had  yet  seen  in  England.  The  walk  to  the  house  was 
through  a  winding  avenue  bordered  with  trees  as  old  probably 
as  any  part  of  the  house.  A  comely  girl  answered  the  bell.  We 
mentioned  that  we  were  strangers  and  wished  to  know  if  it 
would  be  agreeable  to  the  proprietress  to  have  us  examine  the 
grounds.  She  promised  to  inquire,  and  meantime  invited  us 
into  a  large  sitting-room,  which  obviously  had  just  been  de 
serted.  Tables  covered  with  books  or  stationery,  the  morning 
papers,  and  walls  covered  with  large  portraits  the  size  of  life, 
arrested  our  attention  at  a  glance. 

Among  the  pictures  were  one  of  King  James  I. ;  another  of 
the  Duke  of  Buckingham;  another  of  the  Duke  of  Hamilton; 
another  of  Lord  Middleton;  another  of  Arabella  Stuart;  and 
others  of  the  Duchesses  of  Leicester  and  Carlisle,  two  of  the 
favorites  of  Charles  II. 

We  had  barely  made  these  observations  when  the  maid  re 
turned  to  say  that  we  were  quite  welcome  to  visit  the  grounds 
and  examine  the  pictures. 

We  then  walked  out  through  the  grounds,  including  "  Addi 
son  's  Walk,"  as  they  call  it,  which,  however,  has  no  particular 
attraction  that  I  saw,  except  that  it  was  the  most  remote  and 
the  most  secluded  path  about  the  place.  At  the  end  of  the 
garden  I  saw  a  cypress-tree  upon  which  two  branches  were 


278        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

growing  within  reach  that  were  capable  of  being  made  into 
canes.  I  asked  the  gardener  if  there  was  any  objection  to  my 
taking  those  two  sticks  with  me  as  memorials  of  my  visit.  He 
said,  by  no  means ;  and  immediately  got  a  saw,  cut  them  off, 
and  gave  them  to  me.  I  thanked  him  and  placed  a  half-crown 
in  his  hand.  We  then  went  back  to  the  house  to  confess  our 
plunder  and  return  thanks,  when  its  mistress,  who  proved  to 
be  Miss  Bridgeman  Simpson,  came  to  the  door  and  asked  us  to 
walk  in  and  look  at  the  pictures.  She  was  about  fifty  years  of 
age,  if  ladies  ever  get  as  old  as  that,  with  a  pleasing  and  re 
fined  expression,  dressed  in  black  and  wearing  a  cap.  She  is 
one  of  two  maiden  sisters,  as  she  told  us,  who  are  tenants  for 
life  of  this  estate.  She  said  that  Addison  bought  it  with  his 
own  money,  but  left  it  by  his  will  to  Lady  Warwick's  family 
and  not  to  his  own  daughter,  Miss  Addison,  who,  she  observed, 
was  not  very  bright.  Miss  Addison  lived  there,  however,  until 
her  death. 

Miss  Simpson  showed  us  also  portraits  of  Miss  Addison 
when  a  little  girl  and  quite  pretty ;  of  Addison  himself  by  Sir 
Godfrey  Kneller,  a  superb  and  justly  famous  picture;  of  his 
wife,  Lady  Warwick;  of  Anne  of  Austria— it  struck  me  as  a 
little  odd  that  her  picture  and  that  of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham 
should  have  been  hanging  here  beside  each  other ;  of  Lord  Hol 
land  and  his  daughter,  Lady  Thin ;  also  of  two  children  by  Sir 
Peter  Lely ;  and  one  or  two  charming  pictures  of  young  Lord 
Warwick.  These  pictures  are  really  very  valuable,  and  I  en 
joyed  exceedingly  the  privilege  of  examining  them.  I  was 
especially  gratified  by  the  sight  of  Kneller 's  portrait  of  Addi 
son,  remembering  the  lines  he  wrote  on  Kneller  which  have 
contributed  to  perpetuate  the  fame  both  of  artist  and  poet. 

The  house  is  in  the  turreted  or  castellated  style,  the  centre 
having  been  rebuilt,  but  the  rest  being  very  old.  Over  the  en 
trance  door  the  figures  1623  were  cut,  doubtless  to  mark  the 
year  when  it  was  built. 

We  arrived  in  London  on  the  28th,  where,  thanks  to  the 
kindness  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Cropsey,  lodgings  had  been  secured 
for  us  at  No.  14  George's  Terrace,  Kensington. 

The  next  morning  we  walked  around  to  EusselPs.  I  found 
him  and  Mrs.  Eussell  at  breakfast.  Presently  Thackeray,  who 
lived  in  the  near  neighborhood,  came  in  also.  The  second  or 


A.D.  1811 


William  Makepeace  Thackeray 


A.D.  1863 


THACKERAY  AND   THE   CORNHILL  279 

third  number  of  his  new  magazine,  the  Cornhill,  had  appeared 
only  the  day  before.  It  at  once  became  the  subject  of  con 
versation.  Each  in  turn  expressed  his  opinion  of  the  merits 
and  demerits  of  the  several  articles  in  the  number.  After  they 
had  all  pretty  much  said  their  say,  my  wife,  who  had  been 
silent,  said,  "Well,  for  my  part,  I  enjoyed  the  story  about  the 
school  of  girls  better  than  anything  else  in  the  number. " 
1 '  Did  you  f ' '  shrieked  Thackeray,  jumping  up  and  seizing  both 
her  hands.  "Did  you?  My  daughter  Emmie  wrote  that." 
He  was  completely  overcome  by  the  genuineness  and  unaf 
fected  sincerity  of  the  compliment,  for  of  course  he  knew  that 
no  one  in  the  room  but  himself  was  aware  of  the  authorship  of 
the  story,  nor  had  any  of  the  other  persons  present  alluded  to 
it.  I  doubt  if  Thackeray  ever  received  a  compliment  for  any 
thing  he  wrote  himself  that  gave  him  the  pleasure  he  got  from 
this  involuntary  tribute  to  the  maiden  effort  of  Miss  Emmie.1 
He  said  he  thought  the  verses  about  Washington  Irving  in 
that  number  rather  small  beer— a  kind  of  beer  of  which  he  ad 
mitted  he  was  very  fond. 

On  the  2d  of  May  I  gave  a  dinner  at  the  Garrick  Club,  at 
which  John  L.  0  'Sullivan,  the  former  proprietor  and  editor  of 
the  Democratic  Review,  later  one  of  the  editors  with  Mr. 
Tilden  of  the  New  York  Daily  News,  and  who  at  this  time  was 
Minister  to  Portugal  of  President  Buchanan's  selection,  and 

1 1  am  here  tempted  to  quote  a  paragraph  from  a  letter  which  Miss 
Emmie  Thackeray  wrote  to  my  wife  shortly  after  our  return  to  the  United 
States,  because  of  its  allusion  to  some  of  the  penalties  Thackeray's  family 
paid  for  the  pleasure  his  labors  gave  to  the  public : 

"Papa  I'm  thankful  to  say  has  been  pretty  well  this  summer,  ill  indeed 
but  not  quite  so  ill  as  usual.  He  's  going  to  work  very  hard  at  another 
book.  Yet  if  anybody  knew  how  I  hate  the  sight  of  a  'new  book  by  Mr. 
Thackeray/  I  think  they  wd  be  kind  enough  not  to  buy  a  single  copy.  I'm 
sure  <writing-books-&-going-out-to-dinner-to-shake-them-off'  is  the  real  name 
of  his  illness.  However  when  he  's  well  the  work  runs  famously  on  wheels 
&  then  it  '&  pleasant  enough.  Our  new  house  is  coming  to  life  &  costing 
0 !  such  a  deal  of  money ;  so  this  is  another  little  incubus,  though  indeed 
we  are  such  fortunate  people  with  such  good  luck  &  so  happy  a  home  for  us 
young  women  &  so  kind  a  Papa  to  take  care  of  us  that  I  have  to  make  the 
most  of  any  little  disagreeables  if  I  want  to  get  any  pity.  Granny  &  G.P. 
are  pretty  well;  he  gave  us  a  fright  with  a  sort  of  paralytical  attack  & 
brought  us  back  in  a  hurry  from  our  touring  but  is  all  right  again  I  am 
glad  to  say  &  Granny  &  he  think  of  nothing  but  Spiritual  Manifestations 
&  Garibaldi.  Because  you  see,  we  have  no  Presidents  to  work  for  and  talk 
about." 


280       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Eussell  of  the  London  Times  were  among  the  guests.  0 'Sulli 
van  shocked  Eussell  as  well  as  myself  by  avowing  himself  a 
pro-slavery  man  and  declaring  that  the  Africans  in  America 
ought  to  erect  the  first  monument  they  were  able  to  erect  by 
voluntary  subscription  to  the  first  slave-trader. 

Eussell  told  a  story  of  Gladstone's  having  been  "planted" 
by  a  girl  of  the  town  many  years  ago.  Gladstone,  he  said,  was 
one  of  a  party  of  earnest  men  who  united  in  a  concentrated 
effort  to  reclaim  that  class  of  women.  They  would  join  them 
at  night  and  induce  them,  if  they  could,  to  leave  the  street,  and 
offer  them  such  encouragement  as  they  could  to  pursue  a 
different  calling.  One  of  that  class  whom  Gladstone  joined 
chanced  to  know  him— he  was  then  a  Cabinet  minister— and 
after  walking  some  distance  they  entered  a  narrow  lane  in  the 
rear  of  Westminster  Hall,  when  two  or  three  men,  one  of 
whom  was  a  relative  of  the  girl  and  another  who  had  been  her 
paramour,  as  was  afterwards  proved,  came  forward  and 
charged  him  with  attempting  to  violate  her.  Gladstone,  said 
Eussell,  did  not  flinch.  The  men  said  he  must  make  repara 
tion.  He  refused.  "Then,"  said  they,  "you  must  go  to  the 
station."  He  was  quite  willing.  They  went,  an  examination 
was  held,  and  publicity  followed ;  but  Mr.  Gladstone  made  no 
effort  to  escape  responsibility  for  what  he  had  done.  The 
result  was  that  finally  the  rogues  were  exposed,  and  the  next 
night  when  he  entered  the  House  of  Commons  he  was  received 
with  great  applause  by  everybody. 

On  the  evening  of  the  15th  of  May  we  attended  a  ball  given 
by  the  Queen  at  Buckingham  Palace.  We  were  instructed  at 
the  legation  to  be  at  the  palace  at  a  quarter  before  nine.  We 
were  punctual,  of  course,  but  on  arriving  discovered  that  we 
were  a  full  half-hour  too  early. 

About  a  quarter  before  ten,  Mr.  Moran,  the  First  Secretary 
of  our  legation,  told  us  to  follow  Mr.  Dallas  and  his  party  as 
closely  as  we  conveniently  could  into  the  ballroom,  where  we 
were  expected  to  pay  our  respects  to  the  Queen.  The  room, 
which  was  large  of  course,  soon  filled  up,  and  before  we  reached 
the  royal  presence  a  space  was  cleared  for  a  quadrille,  the 
Queen  and  the  Duke  of  Cambridge  in  the  lead.  This  over, 
there  was  another  instalment  of  salutations,  and,  like  the  rest, 
we  bowed  to  the  Queen  and  passed  on. 

A  son  of  Edward  Everett,  then  studying  in  Cambridge,  was 
among  the  American  guests.  The  spectacle  seemed  to  me  bril- 


A  BALL  AT  BUCKINGHAM  PALACE  281 

liant  and  imposing.  The  Prince  of  Wales  and  the  Princess 
Alice  danced,  I  think,  every  set.  She  was  very  pretty.  The 
Prince  of  Wales  did  not  look  as  if  much  interested  in  the 
ceremony,  but  amiable  and  of  course  well  bred.  His  hair  was 
light,  carefully  parted  and  brushed.  His  face  wore  a  modest, 
rather  bashful  expression,  occasionally  revealing  a  sense  of 
humor  which  was  very  pleasing. 

At  precisely  twelve  o'clock,  to  the  music  of  "God  Save  the 
Queen, "  her  Sovereign  Ladyship  moved  toward  the  supper- 
room,  whither  we  followed  as  fast  as  we  could.  I  was  amused 
at  the  embarrassment  of  the  Queen's  children,  of  Princess 
Alice  especially,  in  taking  precedence  of  the  Duchess  of  Cam 
bridge,  who  stopped  right  at  my  side  for  a  minute  or  two,  and 
then  passed  off  in  another  direction  with  Prince  Albert. 

After  supper  the  dancing  was  resumed,  a  species  of  recrea 
tion  of  which  the  Queen  seemed  exceedingly  fond,  though  I  did 
not  think  her  more  fascinating  "in  the  mazy"  than  when  other 
wise  occupied.  She  jumps  about  in  the  style  commonly  de 
scribed  as  rustic,  betraying  in  her  movements  little  of  the 
v era  dea. 

The  commandant  at  Portsmouth  said  we  were  fortunate  in 
finding  the  Queen  so  good-natured ;  that  she  was  not  always  on 
these  occasions  in  such  fine  spirits.  ' l  There, ' '  said  he,  a  little 
later,  "do  you  see  the  Queen  patting  the  floor  with  her  foot? 
She  is  getting  impatient ;  she  will  move  soon, ' '  and  so  she  did. 
She  had  been  disturbed  by  some  confusion  among  the  junior 
dancers  in  her  set. 

I  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  Lord  Lytton  and  Disraeli 
among  the  onlookers— the  only  well  of  literary  eminence  pres 
ent  that  I  recognized.  Bulwer  looked  older  than  I  had  imag 
ined  him,  and  his  skin  and  eyes  betrayed  impaired  health.  I 
little  dreamed  then  that  before  another  five  years  elapsed  I 
should  have  him  a  guest  at  my  dinner-table  in  Paris. 

Disraeli's  face  somehow  interested  but  did  not  please  me. 
Sir  John  Packington  was  pointed  out  to  me— a  very  intellec 
tual-looking  person.  In  the  circle  of  dancers  around  the 
Queen  I  did  not  recognize  a  single  man  who  had  added  any 
thing  to  the  glory  of  England  or  is  likely  to— not  one  of  her 
eminent  statesmen,  writers,  thinkers,  artists  or  warriors,  the 
Duke  of  Cambridge  only  excepted.  Her  Majesty's  surround 
ings  on  this  occasion  seemed  to  have  been  all  selected  accord 
ing  to  the  height  at  which  they  roosted  on  their  genealogical 


282        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

trees.  Another  circumstance  was  not  without  a  certain  sig 
nificance.  I  saw  but  one  member  of  the  Cabinet  there.  That 
was  Lord  Palmerston,  whose  sympathies  with  the  aristocratic 
element  are  well  known  to  distinguish  him  to  some  extent  from 
the  rest  of  his  colleagues. 

Miss  Gladstone  was  there,  but  not  her  father,  who  was  no 
longer  what  he  formerly  was,  a  pet  of  the  aristocracy.  I 
could  not  but  think  I  traced  in  the  absences  and  in  the  pres 
ences  the  disfavor  of  the  new  Eeform  Bill  in  courtly  circles. 
We  remained  until  the  Queen  left,  a  quarter  to  two,  and  then 
sallied  out  to  the  cloak-rooms  to  the  music  of  "God  Save  the 
Queen. "  Here  our  troubles  commenced.  We  waited  vainly 
three-quarters  of  an  hour  longer  for  our  carriage,  and  finally 
jumped  in  with  Moran,  who  brought  us  home,  our  own  car 
riage  arriving  at  our  door  simultaneously. 

As  we  rode  along,  Moran  said  that  the  Queen  had  remarked 
to  Mrs.  Dallas  that  she  had  brought  some  very  nice  Americans 
with  her  at  the  presentation,  "a  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bigelow,"  and 
asked  if  they  were  with  her  to-night.  This,  Mr.  Moran  told  us, 
we  must  regard  as  a  very  extraordinary  attention. 

The  18th  of  May  was  the  Queen's  birthday,  or  at  least  she 
celebrated  it  as  such  by  a  reception  to  which  my  wife  and  I 
were  honored  with  invitations.  Of  course  all  that  England  felt 
proudest  of  was  there,  including  Palmerston,  Lord  Lytton  and 
Disraeli.  I  recognized  no  other  great  powers  of  state  there. 
I  chanced  to  fall  into  conversation  with  a  General  Jervis,  so 
some  one  called  him,  who  was  in  the  campaign  in  Canada 
where  General  Scott  won  his  earliest  military  laurels.  He 
professed  to  know  Napoleon  III.  intimately,  and  to  know  no 
other  man  who  inspired  him  with  more  confidence.  He  pro 
fessed  also  to  know  Lord  Brougham  very  well,  only  regretting 
his  conversation  was  so  profane. 

The  crowd  was  so  great  it  took  us  nearly  an  hour  to  find  our 
carriage  when  we  left. 

On  the  23d  we  went  to  the  Derby  races,  Kussell  and  his  wife 
and  Mackintosh  of  our  company,  with  a  hamper  of  provisions 
for  the  day  from  Fortnum  &  Mason's,  who  had,  no  doubt,  put 
up  several  hundred  more  of  the  kind  for  the  occasion.  We  got 
off  at  half -past  nine  in  the  morning,  but  found  the  road  already 


THE  DERBY  RACES  283 

more  or  less  obstructed  with  vehicles  before  we  got  through 
Battersea. 

Part  of  the  way  out— the  racing-ground  is,  I  was  told,  about 
fifteen  miles  from  Charing  Cross— we  moved  at  a  slow  walk, 
as  if  in  a  procession,  the  carriages  standing  two  and  sometimes 
three  deep  in  lines  as  far  as  the  eye  could  trace  the  road  in 
front  or  rear.  The  day  was  very  fine.  We  reached  the  track 
a  little  before  twelve,  the  grand  stand  not  yet  filled.  We 
walked  with  the  ladies  over  the  grounds  and  got  a  general 
notion  of  the  various  subsidiary  entertainments  which  divided 
with  the  horses  the  curiosity  of  the  crowd.  Gambling  of  one 
sort  or  another  seemed  common  to  all.  There  were  almost  as 
many  women  as  men,  and  of  all  ranks  present. 

I  found  what  Eussell  had  said  about  the  Derby  was  true— 
that  it  was  a  great  national  picnic  and  that  the  speed  of  the 
horses  was,  to  a  large  proportion  of  the  crowd,  quite  a  sec 
ondary  affair.  If  I  wished  to  give  a  person  the  most  complete 
view  possible  of  John  Bull  in  a  single  day,  I  should  certainly 
take  him  to  the  Derby,  where  he  exhibits  more  of  his  virtues 
and  his  vices,  his  powers  and  his  weaknesses,  than  anywhere 
else  that  I  know  of. 

The  home-coming  was  to  me  the  most  interesting  part  of  the 
day's  performance.  For  ten  miles,  at  least,  the  road  was  so 
packed  with  vehicles  that  it  was  impossible  to  move  faster  than 
a  walk.  The  contiguity  invited  a  great  deal  of  chaffing,  espe 
cially  between  the  people  on  foot  and  those  in  carriages,  some 
times  rude  to  the  ladies,  gross,  but  generally  good-natured. 
It  was  quite  common  to  throw  into  carriages  with  ladies  dolls, 
whirligigs,  pincushions,  bouquets,  and  any  other  articles  which 
had  been  purchased  on  the  race-track,  won  at  the  gambling- 
tables,  or  left  over  from  their  lunch-hampers.  Men  would 
even  sometimes  pelt  each  other  with  oranges. 

The  scenes  reminded  me  of  the  carnival  I  had  recently 
witnessed  at  Eome.  Indeed,  the  Derby  is  as  national  a  satur- 
nalium  as  the  British  people  have  any  experience  of.  Eus 
sell,  not  a  bad  judge,  estimated  that  there  were  90,000  people 
on  the  ground.  While  we  were  there  this  seemed  a  large 
figure,  but  on  our  return,  in  the  crush  of  carriages,  covering  all 
the  roads  in  every  direction  toward  London,  and  in  view  of  the 
railways  emptying  forty  or  fifty  cars  every  half-hour  into  the 
city,  his  estimate  did  not  seem  unreasonable. 


284        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 
PEESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  March  1,  1860. 
My  dear  Friend: 

...  I  enclose  printed  notice  cut  from  the  Evening  Journal. 
I  had  talked  freely  with  Governor  Seward  about  you,  telling 
him  of  your  engagement  of  passage  and  the  subsequent  change 
of  day  of  sailing  of  the  Arago.  We  both  concluded  if  you 
started  on  the  29th  of  May  you  would  be  in  time,  if  necessary 
for  you  to  go  to  Chicago.  I  think  Governor  Seward  would  like 
to  have  you  in  the  Convention  and  I  think  for  many  reasons 
it  would  be  well  for  you  to  be  a  delegate— so  that,  although  it 
would  abridge  your  stay  in  England,  if  you  find  it  consistent 
with  what  you  require  for  your  English  visit  to  come  home  in 
May  in  time  for  the  Chicago  Convention  on  the  16th,  come. 
If  your  arrangements  and  engagements  are  such  that  you  can 
not  come  in  either  contingency  decide  at  once  what  you  cannot 
and  what  you  can  do— and  write  at  once  to  Mr.  -  — ,  who  I 
know  is  desirous  you  should  be  a  delegate,  so  that  if  you  are 
to  be  home  in  time  to  go,  you  may  be  made  a  delegate  at  the 
State  Convention  ...  I  think  doubt  or  uncertainty  of  your 
coming  or  staying  would  be  worse  than  certainty  that  you 
could  not  get  home  in  time.  I  wrote  to  Mr.  Weed  suggesting 
that  a  full  or  more  than  full  proportion  of  the  delegates  should 
be  good  and  sound  men  of  democratic  antecedents,  mentioning 
your  arrangements  and  my  expectations  that  you  would  be 
home  in  time  for  the  June  day. 

I  do  not  see  much  chance  in  the  look  for  candidates  for 
President  on  either  side.  I  think  Seward  is  growing  stronger 
as  the  day  for  nominations  approaches— and  you  know  I  have 
thought  for  a  long  time  that  the  condition  of  public  affairs 
and  the  state  of  parties  would  produce  his  nomination.  I 
think  the  current  of  events  more  and  more  indicates  the  elec 
tion  of  the  Eepublican  candidate. 

On  the  democratic  side  there  is  no  more  reasonable  public 
indication  of  what  is  to  be  done  at  Charleston  than  if  that  con 
vention  was  not  to  be  held  till  next  year.  I  think  the  personal 
rancor  among  the  democratic  rivals  is  unabated.  Douglas  is 
drumming  with  all  his  might  but  his  opponents  seem  very 


SEWARD'S  PROSPECTS  ENCOURAGING         285 

determined.  The  democracy  are  no  longer  the  unterrified  and 
I  am  sure  I  do  not  know  and  I  cannot  guess  with  any  con 
fidence  what  they  will  do.  I  do  not  think  Wise  has  ever  had 
any  chance  to  be  taken  up  as  the  candidate. 

Faulkner  of  the  Harper's  Ferry  district  was  appointed  as 
you  will  have  seen  to  France  and  was  here  when  I  got  your 
letter  respecting  Mr.  G.  H.  Clark,  but  for  two  days  only,  and  I 
could  not  get  to  see  him  or  I  would  have  spoken  to  him  of 
Mr.  Clark  &  his  position.  He  went  home  and  packed  up  and 
started  at  once  for  Paris.  I  knew  Mr.  Faulkner  and  could 
have  talked  with  him  if  I  could  have  seen  him.  But  I  did  not 
write  him  lest  a  letter  might  do  more  harm  than  good  as  the 
Harper's  Ferry  fire  was  then  hot  in  Virginia.  I  think  it  is 
cooling  down  since  the  Virginia  State  Convention  to  choose 
their  delegates  to  Charleston. 

I  do  not  think  the  Speaker's  election  has  had  any  effect  on 
the  question  of  who  should  be  candidate  for  President. 

Hopes  and  expectations  of  Missouri  have  undoubtedly  in 
fluenced  the  Blairs  respecting  Bates.  They  are  of  course 
sound  on  principle  themselves  and  will  cordially  support  the 
Republican  nominee.  I  dined  at  Montgomery  Blair's  on  the 
22d  Feby.  with  old  Mr.  &  Mrs.  Blair— they  desire  to  be  remem 
bered  by  you  and  Mrs.  Bigelow.  I  had  a  letter  from  our 
friend  Gideon  Welles  yesterday.  He  says  they  will  have  a 
hard  fight  in  Connecticut  at  their  April  election  but  that  we 
ought  to  succeed.  He  is  not  quite  reconciled  to  making  Seward 
the  candidate  but  he  does  [not]  see  where  to  look  for  one.  We 
are  entering  the  bustle  of  preparation  for  the  Presidential 
Campaign  here— Seward  made  a  strong  and  good  speech  in 
the  Senate  yesterday. 

Yours  truly 


PEESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  March  8,  1860. 
My  Dear  Friend: 

I  wrote  you  a  week  ago.  .  .  .  Mr.  has  less  anxiety, 

indeed  none  at  all  now  as  to  your  coming  home  to  be  at  Chi 
cago.    And  authorizes  me  to  say  so  to  you  as  I  told  him  I 


286       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

should  write  you.  I  had  a  frank  talk  with  Govr.  Seward  to 
day  on  the  subject;  he  realizes  the  unkindness  of  expecting 
Mrs.  Bigelow  to  give  up  without  any  adequate  cause  a  month 
of  your  visit  in  England  involving  the  change  of  your  ar 
rangements  for  a  pleasant  voyage  home.  The  Governor  told 
me  to  say  to  you  that  he  said  you  need  not  come.  As  time 
passes  on  he  is  more  &  more  confident  that  all  is  going  for 
ward  as  he  would  desire  and  he  has  all  the  while  been  very 
confident  of  his  nomination  at  Chicago.  His  speech  is  really 
doing  much  for  him  and  is  made  the  occasion  of  more  in  the 
way  of  demonstration  in  his  favor  from  many  who  have  been 
looking  for  some  other  nomination. 

So  I  write  to  put  you  entirely  at  your  ease  about  taking  your 
time  to  come  home.  There  is  no  necessity  that  for  any  rea 
son  you  should  change  your  arrangements  already  made  for 
a  passage.  But  I  think  you  had  better  not  allow  any  unim 
portant  cause  to  induce  you  to  extend  the  time  of  your  ar 
rangement.  That  will  bring  you  home  early  in  June  in  time 
to  enter  upon  the  service  at  the  commencement  of  the  cam 
paign  and  aid  in  bringing  into  action  any  doubting  as  well 
as  all  the  reserve  force.  You  can  in  this  way  be  quite  as 
efficient  as  in  any  other  way. 

Though  nothing  in  the  future  is  absolutely  certain  my  con 
fidence  is  very  strong  that  Mr.  Seward  will  be  nominated  and 
elected. 

The  Harper's  Ferry  Committee  of  investigation  looks  likely 
to  turn  out  a  perfect  failure  for  the  Slave  propagandists  who 
had  entertained  large  hopes  of  being  able  to  implicate  some 
body  at  least  in  a  knowledge  of  Brown's  movements  and 
purposes. 

The  democratic  senators  in  Caucus  have  adopted  Jeff  Davis ' 
Calhoun  Eesolutions  and  seem  determined  to  maintain  their 
high  horse  pro-slavery  ground  and  I  do  not  see  how  at  this 
late  day  they  could  very  well  change  it  even  if  they  should  be 
satisfied  the  Country  would  not  sustain  it.  The  South  Ameri 
cans  are  pressing  them  hard  in  some  of  the  Slave  States  for 
the  Championship  of  Slavery. 

The  uncertainty  as  to  the  Charleston  nomination  continues. 
Corning  &  Cassidy  were  here  last  week  in  consultation  with 
Douglas— but  I  do  not  see  that  the  democratic  repugnance  to 
him  diminishes  and  although  he  will  have  strong  support  in 


REPUBLICAN  LEGISLATURE  CRITICIZED      287 

the  Convention  it  is  not  probable  that  it  can  overcome  the  re 
sistance  to  him.  Our  people  are  getting  so  confident  as  to 
feel  indifferent  as  to  what  the  democrats  do. 

The  Charter  and  Town  Elections  are  all  going  remarkably 
well. 


PEESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  April  23d,  1860. 
Dear  Friend: 

Your  letter  March  22d  was  duly  reed.  We  all  expect  you 
to  leave  England  for  Home  on  the  29th  May  and  are  all  satis 
fied.  .  .  .  You  have  done  right  to  keep  your  arrangements 
as  to  time,  closing  your  visit  to  England  comfortably.  You 
will  receive  by  the  newspapers  the  account  of  our  N.  Y.  Legis 
lature  which  closed  a  hard  session  very  badly.  You  will  also 
see  the  proceedings  of  the  N.  Y.  State  Convention  &  the  list 
of  delegates.  They  made  me  a  delegate  without  previous 
notice  and  so  I  shall  be  in  the  Convention.  I  think  as  I  have 
for  a  long  time  thought  that  Govr  Seward  will  be  nominated. 
I  have  never  supposed  that  Mr.  Bates  could  have  much 
strength  in  the  convention.  The  Missouri  delegation  will  be 
divided  and  I  do  not  know  where  he  will  have  a  vote  out  of 
Missouri.  Those  here  who  have  been  talking  of  Bates  are 
some  of  them  now  talking  of  Judge  McLean,  of  course  not  the 
Blairs ;  they  stand  by  Bates.  The  Charleston  Convention  con 
venes  today.  Douglas  delegates  from  the  North  and  West 
gathered  here  last  week  in  great  force  and  left  for  Charleston 
with  high  courage  and  confidence,  but  the  opinion  here  is  that 
his  efforts  to  obtain  the  nomination  will  fail.  You  will  prob 
ably  get  the  news  from  Charleston  as  soon  as  you  do  this 
letter— there  is  no  indication  who  will  be  nominated  at 
Charleston. 

I  see  nothing  materially  calculated  to  change  the  prospects 
on  the  Republican  side.  Though  great  fault  is  found  with  the 
Republican  Legislature  at  Albany. 

The  Senate  has  taken  a  sort  of  recess  to  accommodate  those 
going  to  Charleston  for  this  week.  Govr  Seward  goes  home 


288        BETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

today  on  a  visit.    He  will  return  next  week  but  the  action  of 
the  Chicago  Convention  may  send  him  home  again. 

With  my  very  kindest  remembrances  to  Mrs.  Bigelow  &  the 
children, 

Yours  truly 


PEESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  May  10,  1860. 
Lear  Friend: 

Events  have  gone  forward  thick  and  fast  during  the  past  few 
weeks,  and  I  write  you  up  to  the  last  date  that  will  reach  you 
before  you  leave  for  home.  I  will  assume  that  the  newspapers 
have  taken  you  the  accounts  of  the  public  events.  It  seems  to 
me  the  dispersion  at  Charleston  must  break  up  and  destroy 
the  organization  of  the  Democratic  Party.  The  causes  have 
been  long  at  work*  and  the  differences  of  principles  and  inter 
ests  are  irreconcilable  and  they  cannot  be  compromised.  The 
slaveholders  insist  upon  the  extension  of  slavery.  The  Eepub- 
licans  will  not  consent  to  it.  And  upon  this  question  there  is 
no  ground  of  compromise.  It  is  a  question  that  must  be 
decided.  Douglas  has  broken  down  in  his  effort  to  stand  be 
tween  these  two  opinions.  The  feud  between  Douglas  and  his 
friends  on  the  one  side  and  the  Chivalry  on  the  other  is  trans 
ferred  from  Charleston  to  the  Senate  Chamber.  Jeff  Davis 
has  spoken;  Clingman  replied  for  Douglas,  Benjamin  speared 
Clingman  through  &  through  and  Douglas  took  the  floor,  but 
he  lacked  the  swaggering  manner  so  peculiarly  his  own  when 
working  for  and  backed  by  the  South.  He  was  to  have  spoken 
today  but  has  put  off  speaking  till  Monday.  The  war  by  the 
Chivalry  &  the  administration  seems  to  be  with  the  inveterate 
determination  to  destroy  Douglas.  He  has  no  scruples  upon 
principles  and  would  give  them  everything  but  his  aspirations 
for  the  Presidency.  His  friends  in  the  North  West  and  in  free 
States  thus  far,  stand  by  Douglas  because  they  cannot  live  on 
the  ground  the  Chivalry  take  &  have  no  where  any  ground 
pretending  to  be  democratic  when  popular  sovereignty  is  aban- 


PRESIDENTIAL  CANDIDATES  289 

doned.  It  is  not  now  certain  whether  the  seceding  delegates  at 
Charleston  will  have  a  convention  at  Richmond  Va.  or  will  go 
to  the  adjourned  convention  at  Baltimore  on  the  18th  of  June. 
Douglas'  friends  express  the  determination  to  nominate  him 
at  Baltimore.  The  other  side  say  he  can't  be  nominated  and 
that  if  he  is,  the  South  will  not  vote  for  him.  It  seems  to  me 
the  power  and  prestige  of  the  democratic  party  is  broken  and 
gone  forever. 

I  leave  here  as  a  delegate  for  Chicago  tomorrow.  And  I 
see  nothing  to  change  my  opinion  that  Seward  will  be  nomi 
nated.  The  Blairs,  2  from  Maryland  and  one  from  Missouri, 
will  all  be  in  the  convention  and  all  persistent  for  Bates.  Our 
friend  Welles  from  Connecticut  is  in  the  convention;  he  is 
against  Seward  but  is  not  for  Bates— rather  prefers  Chase. 
There  is  some  more  activity  against  Seward  but  I  think  a 
large  majority  of  the  convention  will  be  found  for  him.  The 
American  Union  old  line  Whig  no  party  convention  held  at 
Baltimore  to  day  are  expected  to  nominate  Houston  or  Bell  or 
Everett. 

Yours  truly 


P.S.    It  is  reported  that  John  Bell  is  just  nominated  at  Balti 
more  for  President  and  Edward  Everett  for  Vice  President. 


On  the  30th  of  May  we  sailed  from  Southampton  in*  the 
Arago,  having  spent  just  four  months  in  England  and  Scot 
land,  reaching  New  York  on  the  llth  of  June. 

We  found  the  country  in  a  white  heat  over  the  selection  of 
candidates  for  the  Presidency.  The  census  of  1860  had  re 
vealed  the  fact  that  the  political  power  of  the  nation  had 
crossed  the  Potomac  and  had  been  transferred  by  the  gradual 
increase  of  population  to  the  free  States.  It  was  this  revela 
tion  that  determined  the  Southern  leaders  to  take  the  slave- 
holding  States  at  least,  and  as  many  more  as  they  could,  out  of 
the  Union,  if  what  they  were  wont  to  call  a  " black  Repub 
lican  "  should  be  elected  to  the  Presidency.  As  Senator 
Seward  was  altogether  the  most  conspicuous  champion  of 


290        KETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Free  Soil,  and  more  than  any  other  individual  the  leader  of 
the  Kepublican  party  in  Congress,  it  was  taken  for  granted  in 
New  York  that  he  would  be  nominated. 

The  convention  was  held  in  Chicago  on  the  18th  of  May. 
The  result  of  its  deliberations  proved  that  the  "star  of  em 
pire  "  had  moved  farther  west  already  than  had  been  sus 
pected,  and  Abraham  Lincoln  of  Illinois,  not  Mr.  Seward,  was 
the  successful  candidate.  Had  I  been  at  home  in  time,  I  should 
probably  have  been  a  member  of  that  convention,  and  if  so 
should  have  unquestionably  given  my  vote  there  for  Mr.  Sew 
ard.  This  was  not  the  first  lesson  to  teach  me  how  much  better 
the  Master  is  constantly  doing  for  nations  as  well  as  for  indi 
viduals  than  they  would  do  for  themselves. 

A  by  no  means  inconsiderable  advantage  resulting  from  the 
election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  was  that  it  made  Mr.  Seward  his 
Secretary  of  State,  and,  with  rather  exceptional  advantages 
for  judging,  I  can  think  of  no  statesman  then  regarded  as 
available  for  a  Cabinet  office  in  so  many  ways  adapted  for  the 
conduct  of  our  foreign  affairs  during  the  crises  then  impend 
ing  as  Mr.  Seward. 

This  opinion,  though  shared  by  a  great  majority  of  the  coun 
try,  I  think,  was  not  accepted  with  entire  unanimity.  While 
the  selection  of  Mr.  Lincoln  for  the  Presidency  is  now  re 
garded  by  very  many  of  his  countrymen  as  providential, 
and  with  practical  unanimity  as  the  best  that  could  have  been 
made,  the  enemies  of  both— and  both  had  some  enemies— were 
destined  to  be  surprised  by  the  special,  I  might  say  constitu 
tional,  adaptations  for  the  places  they  were  both  unexpectedly 
called  to  occupy. 

Of  course  the  election  was  the  absorbing  question  with  every 
one,  and  especially  with  the  conductors  of  the  daily  press; 
and  from  the  day  of  my  arrival  until  the  news  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
election  was  proclaimed,  whatever  vigor,  physical  or  mental, 
I  possessed  was  consecrated  pretty  exclusively  to  his  success. 

I  had  a  strange  confidence  that  we  should  win,  and  plunged 
into  the  fight  with  something  of  the  lightness  of  heart  with 
which,  ten  years  later,  fimile  Ollivier  said  France  was  about 
to  try  conclusions  with  Germany.  I  scoffed  at  the  threats  of 
disunion  which  reached  us  from  Charleston  and  Mississippi. 
They  never  cast  a  shadow  on  my  brow.  Our  blindness  is  some 
times  as  fortunate  for  us  as  our  vision  is  at  other  times.  Had 


A-D- 1814  Samuel  Jones  Tilden  A.D.  1886 

The  twenty-first  choice  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  for  the  Presidency 


SAMUEL  J.  TILDEN'S  PROPHETIC  WORDS     291 

my  faith  in  our  success  been  less,  it  would  have  represented 
a  lack  of  faith  in  the  ultimate  success  of  justice  and  of  truth, 
which  my  pen  would  have  betrayed.  Could  I  or  any  of  the 
readers  of  the  Evening  Post  have  known  or  seriously  sus 
pected  the  conflict  in  which  the  country  was  about  to  engage ; 
the  blood  of  our  young  men  that  was  to  be  shed ;  the  millions, 
nay,  milliards  of  dollars  that  were  to  be  expended;  the  po 
litical  debauchery  and  corruption  it  was  to  initiate  in  our 
public  councils,  there  is  little  doubt  we  should  have  concluded 
to  reason  with  our  brother  while  we  were  "in  the  way  with 
him"  some  time  longer,  and  finally  have  looked  to  that  Provi 
dence  whose  resources  are  inexhaustible  for  some  other 
solution  of  the  slavery  problem  than  the  last  argument  of 
kings. 

And  this  reminds  me  of  an  incident  which  occurred  in  my 
editorial  rooms  one  day  that  I  can  never  forget,  and  which  it 
may  be  well  to  keep  in  the  remembrance  of  posterity. 

Samuel  J.  Tilden  and  myself  had  been  more  or  less  intimate 
from  the  time  we  were  both  students  of  law  in  New  York.  We 
had  generally  agreed  on  political  questions.  His  faith  that  he 
was  more  useful  inside  of  the  party  than  outside  of  it  led  him 
to  support  President  Buchanan,  though  in  a  perfunctory  way, 
and  for  his  successor  I  presume  Mr.  Douglas,  who  was  the 
candidate  for  what  might  be  regarded  as  the  Northern  wing 
of  the  Democratic  party. 

He  had  recently  published  in  the  Evening  Post  a  letter  to 
Judge  William  Kent,  the  accomplished  son  of  the  former 
Chancellor  Kent  (whose  Commentaries  on  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  are  still  the  hornbook  on  that  subject  of- all 
American  law  students),  in  which  letter  he  had  dwelt  at  great 
length  upon  the  futility  and  madness  of  electing  as  a  President 
of  the  United  States  a  candidate  who  could  not  expect  to  have 
the  support  of  a  single  slave  State.1 

He  argued  that  the  condition  of  politics  in  which  the  Federal 
Government  should  be  carried  on  by  a  party  having  no  affilia 
tions  in  the  slave  States  would  constitute  a  government  out 
of  all  relations  with  those  States,  that  it  would  be  in  sub 
stance  the  government  of  one  people  by  another  people,  and 
that,  from  the  natural  operation  of  inflexible  laws,  it  must 
result  in  efforts  at  separation  and  lead  to  all  the  imaginable 
1  Bigelow's  Life  of  Tilden,  Vol.  I,  p.  154. 


292        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 
f 

and  unimaginable  disasters  to  be  apprehended  from  such  ef 
forts  ;  he  thought  it  wiser,  therefore,  to  temporize,  to  depend 
upon  the  revelations  of  the  census  to  dispose  of  the  slave 
question,  and  meantime  bear  with  our  present  evils  rather 
than  fly  to  those  we  knew  not  of. 

Only  a  few  days  before  the  election,  and  when  the  partisans 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  were  confident  of  success,  Mr.  Tilden  came 
into  my  room  in  the  Evening  Post,  looking  pale,  haggard  and 
preoccupied.  It  chanced  that  the  late  Hiram  Barney,  then 
Collector  of  the  Port;  the  late  William  H.  Osborn,  then  the 
president  of  the  Illinois  Central  Kailroad;  and  the  late  John 
A.  C.  Gray,  one  of  the  commissioners  of  the  Central  Park- 
all  Republicans  and  all  intimate  acquaintances  of  each  other 
as  well  as  of  Mr.  Tilden  and  myself —were  with  me  at  the  time. 
They  immediately  began  to  chaff  Mr.  Tilden  about  the  politi 
cal  situation  and  the  gloomy  prospects  of  the  ticket  he  was 
expected  to  support.  He  listened  for  a  time  without  relaxing 
in  the  slightest  degree  the  sternness  of  his  expression  or 
assigning  any  motive  for  his  visit.  Looking  back  upon  the 
incident,  I  now  presume  he  had  come  to  reason  with  me  and  to 
impress  me  with  his  own  sense  of  the  perilous  course  in  which 
we  were  assisting  in  leading  the  country;  but  finding  those 
gentlemen  present  and  in  no  mood  to  listen  to  the  kind  of 
counsel  he  wished  to  give,  he  contented  himself  with  saying, 
with  the  dignity  and  austerity  of  a  prophet  which  sobered  us 
all:  "I  would  not  have  the  responsibility  of  William  Cullen 
Bryant  and  John  Bigelow  for  all  the  wealth  in  the  sub- 
treasury.  If  you  have  your  way,  civil  war  will  divide  this 
country,  and  you  will  see  blood  running  like  water  in  the 
streets  of  this  city." 

Having  uttered  these  words,  he  withdrew. 

Ten  or  fifteen  minutes  later,  Andrew  H.  Green,  who  held  a 
clerical  position  in  his  office,  called  to  know  if  Mr.  Tilden  was 
not  there.  I  said  he  had  just  left,  and  then  whispered  in  his 
ear  that  he  had  better  look  Mr.  Tilden  up,  for  he  seemed  very 
much  excited.  Much  as  it  would  have  grieved  me,  I  should 
not  have  been  surprised  had  I  heard  any  time  in  the  next  ten 
days  that  he  was  a  raving  lunatic ;  and  for  the  rest  of  the  day 
I  felt  much  depressed. 

A  few  months  before  Mr.  Tilden 's  death  he  put  into  my 
hands  an  envelope  on  which  was  endorsed,  "Evening  Post, 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  ELECTED  PRESIDENT    293 

October  30,  1860.  An  editorial  upon  Tilden 's  letter  to  Wil 
liam  Kent,  'The  Union,  Its  Dangers.'  "  He  handed  me  the 
envelope  with  a  smile  but  without  any  remark.  I  received  it 
in  the  same  way.  The  editorial  was  not  a  clipping  from 
the  Evening  Post,  but  a  pencil  copy  of  the  article.  It  was 
entitled  "Mr.  Tilden's  Excuses  for  Disfranchising  the  Free 
States. ' '  The  fact  that  he  had  taken  the  trouble  to  have  this 
article  copied  and  to  preserve  it  for  nearly  thirty  years, 
interested,  no  less  than  it  surprised,  me.1  The  article  con 
cluded  by  referring  Mr.  Tilden  and  the  other  readers  of  the 
Evening  Post,  for  a  further  reply  to  his  letter,  to  the  Eve 
ning  Post  of  the  following  Wednesday:  "They  will  then  and 
there  see  whether  the  people  coincide  with  the  opinions  of 
Mr.  Tilden  that  the  vote  of  a  non-slaveholder  is  of  less  value 
than  the  vote  of  a  slaveholder,  or  the  vote  of  a  slave  State 
than  of  a  free  State.  If  they  decide  as  we  expect  them  to, 
we  hope  Mr.  Tilden  and  those  who  have  been  misled  by  a 
similar  course  of  reasoning  will  correct  their  reckonings  by 
the  people's  compass,  which,  after  all,  is  the  only  one  a  states 
man  can  trust." 

On  the  7th  of  November,  which  was  the  day  after  the  elec 
tion,  the  Evening  Post  published  the  following  "Reply  to 
the  Letter  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  Continued  and  Concluded ": 

The  people  of  the  United  States  voted  yesterday  upon  the  questions 
at  issue  between  the  Republicans  and  their  adversaries,  as  represented 
by  Lincoln  and  Hamlin,  candidates  of  the  former,  and  by  Douglas  and 
Johnson,  Breckinridge  and  Lane,  and  Bell  and  Everett,  representing 
the  latter,  with  the  following  result : 

Lincoln  and  Hamlin 

Connecticut 6     New  Hampshire 5 

Illinois 11     New  York 35 

Indiana       13     Ohio 23 

Iowa 4     Pennsylvania 27 

Maine 8     Rhode  Island 4 

Massachusetts 13     Vermont 5 

Michigan 6     Wisconsin 5 

Minnesota 11  Total                                        176 

'For  the  material  portions  of  this  article,  see  Bigelow's  Life  of  Tilden, 
Vol.  I,  p.  155. 


294        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 


Douglas  and  Johnson 

Missouri 

Total 


Doubtful 


Oregon 
California 
Total 


Breckinridge  and  Lane 

_9     Alabama 9 

9      Arkansas 4 

Florida 3 

Georgia 10 

Louisiana 6 

Mississippi 7 

3     North   Carolina 10 

_4     South   Carolina 8 

7     Texas 4 

Total  16! 


IX 

BEBELLION  INITIATED 

SHORTLY  before  the  election,  on  the  5th  of  October, 
1860,  Governor  Gist  of  South  Carolina  dispatched  a 
circular  letter  marked  "Confidential"  by  special  mes 
sengers  to  the  governors  of  the  cotton  States,  in  which  he 
said  that  if  a  majority  of  Lincoln  electors  were  chosen,  South 
Carolina  would  call  a  convention,  and,  with  any  prospect  of 
others  following,  she  would  secede.  He  wished  to  learn  by 
his  proposed  convention  what  cooperation  could  be  expected 
from  other  States. 

On  the  18th  of  October  the  Governor  of  North  Carolina 
wrote  in  reply  to  this  circular  that  his  State  would  regard 
Lincoln's  election  as  a  sufficient  cause  for  disunion;  and  on 
the  25th  of  October  the  Governor  of  Alabama  wrote  that  he 
thought  his  State  would  secede  if  two  or  more  States  set  the 
example.  The  Governor  of  Mississippi,  on  the  26th  of  Octo 
ber,  wrote  that  "if  any  State  moves,  I  think  Mississippi  will 
go  with  her."  The  Governor  of  Louisiana  wrote:  "I  shall 
not  advise  the  secession  of  my  State,  and  I  will  add  that  I  do 
not  think  the  people  of  Louisiana  will  ultimately  decide  in 
favor  of  that  course. ' '  The  Governor  of  Georgia,  October  31, 
ventured  his  opinion  that  his  people  would  wait  for  some 
overt  act.  Florida  was  "ready  to  wheel  into  line  with  the 
gallant  Palmetto  State  or  any  other  State  or  States." 

These  answers,  on  the  whole,  were  not  very  encouraging; 
they  did  not  exhibit  much  confidence  that  the  people  would 
countenance  open  resistance  to  the  Government.  But  the  exi 
gencies  of  party  compelled  politicians  in  the  slave  States  to 
paint  to  their  people  the  purposes  of  the  North  in  the  dark 
est  colors ;  to  misrepresent  the  character  and  purposes  of  the 
Republicans ;  to  inflame  them,  by  the  citation  of  extracts  from 
extreme  antislavery  journals  and  presses  and  speakers,  with 

295 


296        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

the  insecurity  of  their  slave  property ;  and  by  arbitrary  legis 
lation  render  it  impossible  to  let  in  any  light  from  the  North 
to  correct  the  delusions  into  which  the  mass  of  the  people  had 
been  steadily  misled  ever  since  the  refusal  of  the  North  to 
allow  Texas  to  be  admitted  into  the  Union  in  five  States  with 
ten  new  Senators,  instead  of  one  State  with  but  two  Senators. 
But  for  the  political,  or  rather  the  partisan,  interests  which 
the  impending  election  contributed  to  the  flame,  it  is  not 
likely  that  the  demonstration  of  resistance  on  the  part  of 
South  Carolina  would  have  been  attended  with  any  more 
serious  consequences  than  was  the  nullification  message  of 
the  Governor  of  South  Carolina  during  the  Administration 
of  President  Jackson. 

The  manner  in  which  that  incipient  rebellion  was  snuffed 
out  encouraged  many  of  us,  who  were  old  enough  to  have 
remembered  it,  to  believe  with  Mr.  Seward  that  these  demon 
strations  of  discontent  in  the  South  would  also,  in  a  few 
weeks  or  months  after  the  installation  of  a  Free  Soil  Presi 
dent,  end,  like  their  predecessor,  in  smoke.  But  God's  ways 
are  not  our  ways,  and  the  time  had  arrived  in  His  good  provi 
dence  when  far  more  important  ends  were  to  be  served  than 
a  change  of  administration,  or  even  the  limitation  of  slavery 
to  the  States  in  which  it  was  generally  conceded  to  have  con 
stitutional  protection.  The  time  had  arrived  when  the  coun 
try  must  prepare  itself  to  endure  trials  and  tribulations 
through  which  only  could  it  properly  expiate  the  injustice 
of  depriving  six  millions  of  bondmen  of  any  rights  which  a 
white  man  was  bound  to  respect. 

During  his  visit  in  October,  1860,  the  Prince  of  Wales,  ac 
companied  by  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  was  brought  to  West 
Point  in  a  government  vessel  in  charge  of  the  Collector,  then 
Augustus  Schell.  As  I  was  then  occupying  my  country  home 
adjoining  West  Point,  I  met  the  superintendent,  General 
Delafield,  on  my  way  to  take  the  steamer  Mary  Powell  for 
New  York.  He  said  to  me  that  he  was  very  much  bothered 
how  to  get  a  message  to  the  Collector  to  advise  him  in  advance 
as  to  the  arrangements  for  the  reception  of  the  Prince  and  his 
escort.  I  told  him  if  it  was  of  sufficient  importance  I  would 
see  that  it  reached  him;  that  the  captain  of  the  Mary  Powell, 
I  was  sure,  would  put  me  on  board  the  government  vessel. 


PRINCE  OF  WALES  VISITS  THE  UNITED  STATES  297 

He  said  it  would  be  a  very  great  favor,  and  handed  me  a  note 
to  Mr.  Schell,  who  was  detailed  to  escort  the  visitors  to  the 
Military  Academy. 

Captain  Anderson  did  not  hesitate  a  moment  to  comply 
with  my  wishes ;  he  signalled  to  the  government  steamer  as  we 
approached  her  half-way  on  our  voyage  to  the  city,  and  al 
lowed  me  to  pass  on  board  of  her,  which  I  did,  and  returned 
with  her  to  West  Point. 

It  was  then  and  there  that  I  first  met  King  Edward  VII.  to 
speak  with  him— a  lad  of  apparently  eighteen  or  nineteen 
years,  and,  as  became  his  years,  with  a  shy,  modest  and  almost 
girlish  expression  of  countenance. 

We  met  again  in  the  afternoon  at  the  headquarters  of  the 
superintendent  of  West  Point,  where  I  had  the  privilege  of 
presenting  my  wife.  Many  years  after,  at  the  Jubilee  of  her 
Majesty,  his  mother,  the  Prince  paid  my  wife  the  compliment 
of  reminding  her  of  their  meeting  at  West  Point  in  his  youth. 

In  the  fall  of  1860  and  shortly  after  the  return  of  Eichard 
H.  Dana  from  a  somewhat  protracted  tour  in  Europe,  I  took 
the  liberty  of  suggesting  to  him— mindful  of  the  wonderful 
success  of  his  "Two  Years  Before  the  Mast "— to  give  an 
other  journal  of  his  more  recent  experience  in  the  Old  World. 
I  may  have  added  (having  no  copy  of  my  letter,  I  cannot  be 
sure)  that  if  he  chose  to  run  his  journal  through  the  Eve 
ning  Post  we  would  see  that  the  time  he  spent  on  it  was  not 
wasted.  His  reasons  for  declining  both  propositions  are 
stated  in  the  following  letter. 


EICHARD  H.  DANA  TO  BIGELOW 

BOSTON,  Oct.  22,  1860. 
Dear  Sir: 

I  have  taken  time  to  deliberate  upon  your  proposal  respect 
ing  my  journal;  &  at  the  same  time,  have  been  making  up  my 
mind  on  the  question  whether  I  shall  print  at  all.  I  have  full 
materials  &  much  that  I  wish  to  say,  &  the  occupation  would 
be  a  very  agreeable  one  to  me;  but  I  am  determined  to  live 
by  my  profession;  and  an  absence  of  so  long  a  time  makes  it 


298        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

necessary  for  me  to  devote  myself  to  it  with  singleness  of 
purpose.  If,  in  addition  to  the  labors  of  my  profession,  I 
should  have  the  book  on  my  mind,  I  should  not  have  an  enjoy 
able  moment  of  leisure,  &  should  take  the  risk  of  overwork 
ing—a  thing  no  man  can  afford  to  do  twice. 

I  have,  therefore,  made  up  my  mind  to  dismiss  the  book; 
&  the  same  reasoning  requires  me  also  to  decline  your  offer. 
To  furnish  the  articles  would  require  labor,  &  to  furnish  them 
with  anything  like  regularity  would  make  me  anxious. 

Your  letter  reminded  me  of  what  Macaulay  says  of  the 
letters  of  instruction  Hastings  used  to  receive  from  the  E. 
India  Company— Moral  lectures  against  extortions  &  demands 
for  more  rupees.  I  have  turned  your  good  advice  respecting 
overwork  against  you,  &  refused  the  rupees. 

I  was  so  much  pleased  with  what  you  said  about  the  poli 
tics  of  America,  that  I  took  the  liberty  to  read  it  to  my  father 
&  brother,  who  agreed  with  me  in  my  estimation  of  it. 

I  ought  to  have  staid  a  few  weeks  in  some  quiet  place  in 
Europe  &  prepared  my  journal,  &  just  handed  it  over  to 
Fields,  on  landing.  But  I  am  too  late  to  retreat  now.  I  have 
begun  my  professional  labors,  &  cannot  step  aside. 

Believe  me,  my  dear  Sir,  I  am  truly  grateful  to  you  for 
the  interest  you  have  taken  in  my  work,  &  for  the  delicate 
manner  in  which  you  have  expressed  all  that  you  have  said.  I 
can  only  add  that  if  I  have  anything  for  the  journals  which 
it  will  be  more  gain  than  expense  for  them  to  print,  I  shall 
take  pleasure  in  giving  preference  to  the  Evening  Post. 

Yours  truly 


About  a  month  later  I  received  the  following  letter  from 
Mr.  Dana: 

KICHARD  H.  DANA  TO  BIGELOW 

BOSTON,  Nov.  21,  1860. 
Dear  Sir: 

A  few  days  ago  a  number  of  us  gave  a  dinner  to  Gov. 
Banks,  to  testify  our  sense  of  the  value  of  his  services  (as 


RICHARD  H.  DANA-WILLIAM  DEAN  HOWELLS     299 

Governor)  to  the  cause  of  science  &  letters.  It  was  semi  pri 
vate,— so  as  to  exclude  all  official  notice  of  it  in  the  daily 
papers,— yet,  as  our  object  was  to  gratify  him  &  to  let  others 
know  the  feeling  entertained  towards  him,  some  notice  of  it 
seems  necessary  to  effect  the  end. 

I  believe  no  notice  of  it  has  appeared  anywhere,  &  I  leave 
it  to  your  taste  &  judgment  to  treat  it  appropriately— or  not 
at  all— whichever  you  do  will  be  coincided  in  by  us. 

The  principal  gentlemen  present  were,  Agassiz,  Pierce, 
Longfellow,  Emerson,  Holmes,  Pres.  Felton,  Lowell,  Charles 
Ed.  Bigelow,  Dr.  S.  G.  Howe,  Dr.  I.  Bigelow,  Sumner,  Judge 
Hoar,  Col.  Sargent,  Whipple  &c.— some  five  &  twenty  in  all. 

We  live  in  a  new  country!  The  test  of  the  election  of  a 
man  not  nominated  by  the  oligarchy,  &  not  subservient  to 
their  cause,  has  been  applied.  It  has  revealed  a  more  rotten 
state  than  I  expected.  But  this  only  proves  the  need  of  the 
revelation.  Every  delay  diminishes  the  recuperative  power. 

Another  curious  result  is  the  proof  of  the  fact  that  those 
who  have  been  denouncing  us  &  crying  for  the  Union  are  a 
small  northern  wing  of  the  Secessionists! 

But  these  are  times  worthy  of  men  of  thought,  feeling  & 
power  to  live  in ! 

Yours  truly 


During  the  summer  of  1860  a  young  gentleman  called  at  our 
office  and  handed  me  the  following  letter,  which  has  gained 
in  interest  ever  since,  by  reason  of  its  being  practically  the 
first  milestone  in  the  career  of  William  Dean  Howells.  As 
he  was  then  young,  without  experience  in  metropolitan  jour 
nalism,  and  as  literary  work— which  then  meant  reviewing 
of  books— was  the  department  he  thought  himself  competent, 
or  his  taste  inclined  him,  to  fill,  we  did  not  "talk  business. " 

Mr.  Howells  has  since  then  made  it  sufficiently  apparent  that 
if  he  had  been  put  into  the  traces  at  that  early  period  of  his 
life  he  would  not  only  have  made  an  excellent  all-round  jour 
nalist,  but  might  have  ultimately  occupied  the  chair  to  which 
Mr.  Godkin  afterwards  lent  so  much  distinction. 


300        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 


JAMES  T.  FIELDS  TO  BIGELOW 

BOSTON,  August  13,  1860. 

135  WASHINGTON  STREET. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

Now  here  is  a  young  man  to  be  secured  for  The  Post.  He 
is  one  of  our  writers  in  The  Atlantic,  (Bead  every  line  of  the 
poem  I  enclose  which  appears  in  the  Sept.  No.  &  copy  it  too), 
and  he  has  had  much  experience  on  a  western  paper.  We 
all  think  so  highly  of  his  talents  here  that  if  we  could  keep 
him  we  would.  He  choflses  The  Post  of  all  papers  in  the 
Union,  &  if  you  get  him  for  your  literary  work  &c.  you  get  a 
lad  who  will  be  worth  his  weight  &c.  &c.  &c.  His  name  is  Wm. 
Dean  Howells.  Lowell  &  Holmes  put  the  poem  'The  Pilot's 
Story'  among  the  fine  things  of  our  day. 

Yrs.  always 


Shortly  after  the  Presidential  election  which  resulted  in 
the  choice  of  Mr.  Lincoln  for  President,  I  received  a  note  from 
N.  P.  Willis,  enclosing  the  following  from  Brantz  Mayer  of 
Baltimore,  and  expressing  the  hope  that  it  might  be  in  my 
power  in  some  way  to  go  to  the  relief  of  his  correspondent : 


BBANTZ  MAYER  TO  N.  P.  WILLIS 

Confidential 

BALTIMORE,  llth  November,  1860. 
My  dear  Willis: 

I  am  sorry  that  our  correspondence  (which  has  been  interrupted  for 
some  months)  should  be  renewed  under  circumstances  of  deep  pain,  in 
which,  I  am  sure,  you  will  sincerely  share.  A  shameful  bank  failure 
here,  during  the  week  before  last,  has  swept  away  at  one  blow  the 
accumulations  of  several  years,  and  left  me,  at  51,  a  stranded  wreck, 
with  very  little  more  than  $100  of  available  money  in  my  pocket !  My 


N.  P.  WILLIS  AND  BRANTZ  MAYER  301 

regular  professional  practice  has  been  of  very  little  value,  as  steady 
income,— since  my  engagement  in  winding  up  the  McDonough  Estate  in 
New  Orleans  during  five  years  has  taken  me  for  six  months  of  each 
out  of  the  city.  To  recur  to  it,  instantly,  as  a  means  of  support  for  my 
family  is  impossible ;  so  that  we  count  it  a  happy  circumstance  that  we 
own  the  home  over  our  heads  without  any  encumbrance  upon  the 
property.  You  will  easily  comprehend,  old  friend,  that  I  am  very 
much  depressed,  sleepless,  &  nervous  from  this  sudden  &  altogether 
unexpected  calamity.  But  I  must  lose  not  a  moment  in  trying,  at  least, 
if  not  to  retrieve  fortune  or  comparative  ease,  at  least  to  keep  out  of 
debt  &  to  make  a  living  for  the  nine  females  dependent  on  me ! 

The  instrument  in  my  hand— the  pen — seems  to  indicate  a  hope; 
and  I  have,  therefore,  resolved  to  sit  down,  this  Sunday  morning,  & 
write  this  note  to  you  &  the  dear  General  jointly,  asking  your  kind 
consideration  of  my  case,  and  an  inquiry,  whether  through  his  and 
your  aid,  I  could  not  get  an  employment  in  New  York  either  in  literary 
or  political  writership  which  would  give  us  from  $2000  to  $2500  a  year 
for  the  present.  It  is  very  likely  that  I  could  bring  into  any  estab 
lished  concern  three  or  four  thousand  dollars  as  a  permanent,  or  at 
least  long  investment  upon  the  consideration  of  my  continued  engage 
ment.  This  would  be  through  friends. 

I  know,  dear  Willis,  that  I  need  not  a  word  to  your  hearts  to  solicit 
for  me  an  early  and  energetic  consideration  of  this  matter.  My  brain, 
I  think,  is  clearer  than  ever,  &  my  writing  facility  quite  unchanged 
from  twenty  years  ago,  though  probably  more  chastened  by  good  taste 
&  experience.  Mention  these  things,  with  my  love,  promptly  to  the 
General,  who  is  more  frequently  in  town  than  you  are,  and  probably 
knows  better  the  wants  and  the  wanters,  who  may  or  might  be  inclined 
to  consider  favorably  my  proposal.  I  am  not  unequal  to  any  kind  of 
work,  when  I  have  others  to  labor  for.  Pride  falls  before  love.  At  51 
we  must  be  prompt,  eager,  &  not  desponding,  else  we  sag  &  are  lost. 

If,  on  consultation  with  the  General,  anything  can  be  done  for  me, 
affording  an  assured  revenue,  based  upon  the  payment  of  3  or  4000$ 
in  an  establishment  of  assured  character,  my  plan  would  be  to  remove 
to  New  York  as  soon  as  practicable,  &  to  take  up  quarters  for  my  fam 
ily  somewhere  in  a  cheap  neighborhood  on  the  river  or  elsewhere,  so  as 
to  avoid  the  extravagances  of  the  city  life,  and  its  temptations  for  my 
poor  children. 

And  so,  dear  Willis,  &  my  valued  friend  Morris,  pray  hearken  unto 
these  things  with  the  kindness  I  know  exists  in  both  of  you,  &  with  my 
best  regards  to  all,  believe  me  ever  &  truly  your  friend 

Though  I  had  then  never  been  brought  into  any  personal 
relations  with  Mr.  Mayer,  I  knew  Mm  by  reputation,  and  also 


302        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

by  knowing  rather  intimately  some  of  his  intimate  friends. 
I  knew  also  that  he  was,  with  a  single  exception,  perhaps  the 
most  accomplished  man  in  Maryland.  For  our  common 
friends'  sake  as  well  as  his  own,  I  was  anxious  to  serve  him. 
The  convention  that  was  to  form  a  constitution  for  the  State 
of  South  Carolina,  which  had  already  declared  itself  out  of 
the  Union,  was  soon  to  meet.  It  occurred  to  me  that  Mr. 
Mayer,  as  coming  from  a  slave  State,  as  president  of  the 
Maryland  Historical  Society,  and  author  of  one  or  two  books 
of  good  repute,  besides  being  well  known  by  name,  at  least 
throughout  the  slave  States,  might  possibly  be  able  and  will 
ing  to  attend  that  convention  and  give  the  readers  of  the 
Evening  Post  a  more  sensible  and  dispassionate  account  of  it 
than  could  be  expected  from  professional  reporters.  Under 
such  impressions  I  wrote  to  him,  proposing  such  a  mission.  I 
accompanied  that  proposal  with  an  invitation  to  him  and  Mrs. 
Mayer  to  visit  me  at  my  country  home.  On  the  16th  of  No 
vember  I  received  from  him  the  reply  given  below. 

The  professional  correspondence  which  follows,  between 
myself  and  Brantz  Mayer,  L.  Pettigrew,  and  E.  B.  Ehett, 
sheds  a  lurid  light  on  the  condition  of  public  opinion  in  the 
slaveholding  States,  which  would  not  be  intelligible  to  this 
generation,  and  of  questionable  credibility  except  on  the  tes 
timony  of  the  actual  witnesses,  participators  or  sufferers  in 
what  they  describe. 


BRANTZ  MAYEE  TO  BIGELOW 

5TH  AVE.  HOTEL,  Friday  night, 

16  Nov.  1860. 
My  dear  Sir: 

Mrs.  Mayer  unites  cordially  with  me  in  thanks  for  your 
kind  invitation  to  visit  Mrs.  Bigelow  &  yourself  at  your  coun 
try  residence.  Upon  consultation,  we  find  that  we  must  deny 
ourselves  that  great  pleasure  at  present,  as  it  will  not  be  pos 
sible  for  us  to  remain  away  over  Sunday. 

Let  me  assure  you  that  I  am  very  sensible  of  the  kindness  of 
your  offer  to  me  of  a  correspondence  from  the  South  during 


BRANTZ  MAYER  AND  THE  EVENING  POST    303 

this  winter  or  a  part  of  it.  I  will  give  you  a  definite  answer 
probably  on  Tuesday  next,  and  hope  you  will  not  suffer  .any 
detriment  by  my  delay  of  acceptance  or  refusal.  I  wish  to 
consult  with  a  couple  of  friends  in  Baltimore  upon  whose 
advice  I  am  accustomed  to  rely  when  my  own  mind  is  not  clear 
in  determining.  The  step  is  an  important  one,  and  I  am  quite 
conscious  of  the  confidence  you  have  so  flatteringly  bestowed 
on  me. 

Yours 


Four  days  later  I  received  the  promised  reply : 

BEANTZ  MAYEE  TO  BIGELOW 

BALTIMOKE,  20th  November,  1860. 
My  dear  Sir: 

In  compliance  with  my  promise  to  give  a  definite  answer  to 
your  proposal  on  to-day,  (Tuesday),  I  beg  leave  to  say  that  I 
consulted  several  friends,  &  am  advised  by  them  to  accept 
your  kind  proposal  with  a  slight  modification. 

I  will  go  to  Charleston  &  other  points  of  interest  in  the 
South,  for  the  purposes  described  in  our  interview  &  remain 
there  for  such  a  period  as,  upon  consultation,  may  be  deemed 
advisable.  The  engagement  to  be  for  not  less  than  one  mon,th, 
&  the  compensation  for  that  month  to  be  at  the  rate  of  sixty 
dollars  per  week.  If  I  remain  over  a  month,  my  compensa 
tion  to  be  on  your  own  terms— $50  per  week  for  all  time  sub 
sequent  to  the  1st  month.  My  travelling  expenses,  out  & 
home,  to  be  paid  in  addition  to  my  weekly  salary. 

The  modification  suggested  for  the  first  month  is  founded 
on  the  expense  which  I  would  necessarily  incur  for  the  first 
month  in  a  new  place  with  the  arrangements  and  economies 
of  which  I  am  entirely  unacquainted.  My  friends  think  that 
the  nature  of  my  engagement  with  you  requires  my  residence 
in  the  best  establishments,  which,  in  all  likelihood,  will,  at 
present,  be  very  crowded  &  expensive.  Certainly,  I  should 


304        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

not  skulk  in  obscure  lodgings  or  manifest  the  "res  angusta." 
This,  let  me  assure  you,  is  not  urged  in  a  spirit  of  pressure 
or  extravagance,  but  as  part  of  the  policy  I  should  pursue  in 
regard  to  my  social  position  in  a  region  where  much  regard  is 
paid  to  externals.  To  be  perfectly  frank— I  ought  to  have, 
at  least,  $20  per  week  for  myself  in  the  South,  while  my 
family,  which  is  large,  would  require,  at  present,  about  $40. 
I  find,  on  consultation  with  experienced  men,  that  your 
views  not  only  meet  their  hearty  approval,  but  are  applauded 
for  their  patriotic  impulse.  The  publication  of  the  exact 
facts  by  a  journal  like  yours,  must,  in  their  judgment,  do  good, 
if  good  can  be  done  by  calm  statements  &  a  lingering  love  of 
the  Union. 

Very  truly,  my  dear  Sir, 

Your  obliged 


In  the  interval  between  the  receipt  of  this  and  the  preced 
ing  letter,  I  received  the  following  note  from  R.  B.  Ehett, 
Jr.,  the  editor  of  the  Charleston  Mercury.  It  was  in  reply 
to  a  letter  from  me,  asking  whether  he  thought  any  serious 
objections  would  be  made  to  or  difficulties  encountered  by  a 
correspondent  of  the  Evening  Post  attending  to  report  the 
debates  in  the  constitutional  convention  which  was  about  to 
be  held  in  Charleston,  alleging  the  importance  of  the  occasion 
as  a  sufficient  motive  for  securing  the  utmost  publicity  for  the 
deliberations  of  that  body. 

The  Charleston  Mercury  was  famed  throughout  the  coun 
try  for  its  extreme  views  on  the  slavery  question  and  as  the 
organ  of  the  most  fanatical  portion  of  the  disunion  party  in 
the  South.  It  was  the  public  print  which  contributed  more 
perhaps  than  any  press  in  the  Northern  States,  by  its  ex 
travagant  utterances  in  favor  of  nationalizing  slavery  and  in 
denunciation  of  the  North,  to  bring  on  there  a  reaction  against 
slavery.  It  was  rare  for  the  Evening  Post  to  go  to  press  in 
those  days  without  an  extract,  longer  or  shorter,  from  the 
editorial  columns  of  the  Mercury. 

Mr.  Ehett 's  answer  to  my  inquiry,  which  follows,  was  one 


E.  B.  RHETT  AND  THE  EVENING  POST        305 

of  those  explosions  of  discourtesy  and  ruffianism  with  which 
the  readers  of  the  Mercury  were  familiar,  but  which,  familiar 
as  I  necessarily  was  in  those  days  with  the  ethical  standards 
of  the  press  of  the  non-slaveholding  States,  I  could  never 
imagine  myself  exposed  to  from  any  of  its  editors. 


B.  B.  EHETT,  JB.,  TO  BIGELOW 

Mercury  Office, 
CHAELESTON,  Nov.  14,  1860. 
JOHN  BIGELOW,  ESQ., 

Dear  Sir: 

I  have  received  your  note  of  the  13th  inst.  in  regard  to 
the  Evening  Post  sending  on  a  reporter  to  report  the  pro 
ceedings  of  the  Convention  of  South  Carolina  to  meet  Dec. 
17th. 

In  my  opinion  your  reporter  would  run  great  risk  of  his 
life,  and  I  am  sure  would  not  be  allowed  to  report  the  pro 
ceedings.  Kepresenting  that  paper  he  would  certainly  be 
tarred  and  feathered  and  made  to  leave  the  state,  as  the  mild 
est  possible  treatment  consistent  with  the  views  of  the  people 
here. 

The  Mercury  and  Courier  will  both  have  competent  re 
porters  present,  and  in  that  way,  through  these  journals,  you 
may  expect  to  gain  all  the  information  necessary.  No  agent 
or  representative  of  the  Evening  Post  would  be  safe  in  com 
ing  here.  He  would  come  with  his  life  in  his  hand,  and  would 
probably  be  hung. 

Professionally  yours 


In  1867  I  visited  Charleston,  at  the  time  when  another  con 
vention  was  being  held  for  the  formation  of  a  new  constitu 
tion  for  the  State  of  South  'Carolina  to  take  the  place  of  the 
disunion  constitution  organized  in  1860.  The  only  member 


306       EETEOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

of  the  Bhett  family  of  whom  I  could  then  get  any  information 
was  a  conductor  of  a  street-car  in  Charleston.  I  was  pleased 
to  learn  that  the  Civil  War,  which  had  proved  so  disastrous  to 
his  compatriots,  had  forced  one  of  the  Khett  family,  at  least, 
to  be  useful  to  them,  which  as  journalists  they  had  never  been. 
I  sent  a  copy  of  Mr.  Ehett 's  letter  to  Mr.  Mayer.  In  a  few 
days  I  received  the  following  letter  from  him,  curiously  illus 
trative  of  the  terrorism  prevailing  even  among  the  slave 
holders  themselves.  Acteon  was  again  pursued  by  his  own 
hounds. 


BEANTZ  MAYEE  TO  BIGELOW 

BALTIMORE,  23  November,  1860. 
My  dear  Sir: 

Mr.  Ehett 's  observations  seem  to  place  any  correspondent 
of  your  paper  from  Carolina  in  such  a  position  that  it  would 
be  impossible  for  him  to  perform  his  duties  efficiently  and, 
at  the  same  time,  to  conduct  himself  with  that  degree  of 
social  frankness,  which,  at  least,  would  satisfy  his  self  respect. 
Intolerance  seems  to  have  overwhelmed  every  other  feeling! 
If  a  simple  Eeporter  of  speeches  cannot  be  safe,  how  could 
a  person  who  must  deal  with  opinions,  facts,  &  current  events, 
escape  the  harshest  usage?  I  confess  I  was  not  prepared 
for  such  violence,  though  several  occurrences  might  have 
warned  me.  In  such  a  condition  of  society  a  writer  would  be 
under  constant  apprehension:  because,  no  matter  how  right, 
or  how  Southern  he  might  be,  the  fact  of  mere  connection 
with  the  northern  press  is  sufficient  to  make  one  a  culprit  at 
the  bar  of  Carolina  opinion!  Eheu! 

I  hate  concealments.  They  are  the  sources  of  all  sorts  of 
misapprehensions.  In  an  inflamed  region  like  Carolina,  they 
would  convert  a  saint  into  a  spy.  But,  independently  of  any 
public  results,  there  is  a  private  feeling  which  makes  one 
reluctant  to  perform  any  duty  which  imposes  restraint  on 
one's  social  relations.  The  very  fact  that  the  purpose  of  my 
residence  in  the  South  was  necessarily  secret,  would  impair 
my  usefulness  to  you,  because  it  would  limit  my  correspon- 


BRANTZ  MAYER,  PALMETTOS,  RATTLESNAKES     307 

dence  to  very  little  more  than  the  meagre  reports  which  you 
will  get,  at  little  cost,  by  telegraph.  No  one  could  be  com 
fortable  under  the  sense  of  insecurity,  in  such  a  community 
as  the  one  your  letter  describes. 

I  jot  these  things  down  rapidly  after  reading  your  letter 
to  the  two  friends  with  whom  I  had  before  taken  counsel. 
They  are  very  decided  in  thinking  that  it  would  not  be  right 
for  me  to  undertake  the  mission  (really  honorable  as  it  is), 
under  such  circumstances.  I  have,  therefore,  to  regret  that 
I  may  have  prevented  you  from  making  another  engagement. 
Nevertheless,  I  shall  always  feel  bound  in  gratitude  to  you 
for  your  kind  intention  in  devising  the  scheme,  which,  I 
half  suspect,  you  formed  mainly  for  my  advantage.  It 
was  a  generous  act,  of  which  I  shall  always  be  profoundly 
sensible. 

Yet,  my  dear  Sir,  upon  the  whole,  it  may  be  money  well 
saved  for  you.  I  wish  I  could  earn  it  honestly  from  you  in  some 
other  literary  way,  but  I  do  not  think  I  could  give  you  "  value 
received "  under  such  circumstances,  in  Carolina!  To  write 
well  one  must  be  at  ease  in  mind,  and  what  one's  periods  or 
opinions  would  be  worth,  ' '  walking  among  the  blazing  plough 
shares,  ' '  you  can  say  without  any  hint  from  me. 

These  views  are  not  founded  on  timidity,  but  on  a  prudent 
apprehension  of  all  dealings  with  a  half-crazed  society, 
exalted  by  political  passion,— and  on  a  sense  of  inability  to 
do  my  whole  duty  to  you  in  discharge  of  a  liberal  recompense. 
Your  letter,  with  Bhett's  remark,  has  made  me  ten-fold  more 
anxious  about  the  South!  It  is  a  frightful  despotism. 

Pray  let  me  hear  from  you,  &  get  me  among  you  in  New 
York  some  of  these  days,  when  I  will  be  more  useful  than 
among  "palmettos,"  "red  stars,"  and  "rattle-snakes"! 

Truly  yours 


I  then  made  some  other  suggestion  to  Mr.  Mayer  (I  have 
no  copies  of  any  of  my  letters  to  him)  in  which  I  tried  to 
serve  him.  Though  I  have  made  an  earnest  effort,  I  have  been 
hitherto  disappointed  in  securing  any  of  the  originals,  and 
especially  the  one  to  which  the  following  is  a  reply: 


308        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 
BEANTZ  MAYEE  TO  BIGELOW 

BALTIMORE,  10  December,  1860. 
My  dear  Sir: 

I  am  very  much  obliged  by  your  continued  solicitude  for 
my  welfare,  &  for  the  suggestion  of  an  occupation  which 
might  suit  my  capacity  in  New  York,  and,  probably,  in  your 
office.  That  I  have  not  written  you  sooner  must  not  be  re 
garded  by  you  as  neglectful.  I  will  reply  to  you,  at  length, 
in  a  few  days,  so  as  to  let  you  judge,  instead  of  absolutely 
deciding  for  myself.  For  a  week  or  two  I  have  been  a  good 
deal  occupied  by  some  pressing  matters  which  deprived  me 
of  the  pleasure  of  writing  to  you  in  the  manner  in  which  so 
important  an  affair  ought  to  be  approached.  Besides  this, 
some  parties  here  have  made  a  proposal  to  me  to  unite  in  the 
purchase  of  the  Baltimore  Patriot— (an  evening  paper), 
which,  you  may  remember,  is  an  old  gazette  of  this  city,  but 
has  rather  run  down  at  the  heels  during  the  last  five  or  6 
years.  Its  subscription  &  advertising  patronage  still  pay  the 
expenses  of  publication,  while  the  type,  paper,  good-will,  &c. 
&c.,  are  valued  at  about  9  or  10  thousand  dollars.  During  the 
presidential  campaign,  this  paper  has  been  a  Bell  &  Everett 
journal ;  but,  at  all  times,  was  disposed  to  treat  Mr.  Lincoln  with 
so  much  fairness  that  many  folks  have  charged  it  with  decided 
Eepublican  tendencies.  The  project  now  on  foot  is  to  revive 
the  paper  fully;— to  give  a  vigorous  support  to  all  efforts 
either  for  the  Continuation  of  our  Union,  or  for  the  Union 
of  as  many  of  the  states  as  can  be  still  held  in  bonds  of  Amity 
under  the  Constitution  as  it  exists;  and  to  advocate,  in  this 
border  state,  the  duty  of  giving  the  new  president  a  fair  trial, 
before  assuming  that  we  have  cause  for  secession.  The 
Union  feeling  here  is  decided;  yet,  men  who  are  intolerant 
of  any  possibility  of  dissolving  the  compact,  are  in  a  hurry 
to  accommodate  matters,— and,  finding  the  prospect,  just  now, 
apparently  hopeless,  look  rather  to  the  South  than  the  North 
for  their  future  affiliations.  In  truth,  our  Middle  States,  half 
emptied  of  slaves,  are  in  a  more  bewildered  &  unlucky  condi 
tion  than  the  others  where  freedom  or  slavery  is  decidedly 
the  vital  &  predominant  institution.  I  have  no  other  know- 


THE  SOUTH  ALL  PASSION  309 

ledge  of  such  a  state  of  public  &  private  anxiety,  or  hopeless 
depression,  rather,  as  exists  now  in  Baltimore !  I  think,  (from 
letters  received  yesterday  from  my  brother-in-law,  a  mer 
chant,  who  is  now  in  New  England  on  business  )^  that  the 
North  is  equally  anxious,  depressed,  &  perhaps  angry.  The 
South  seems  to  be  all  passion: — it  is  a  stage  beyond  anger. 
And  then,  withal,  there  is  not  in  Congress  a  single  originat 
ing  mind,  or  a  single  predominating  influence,  which  may  be 
invoked,  in  this  hour  of  peril,  to  pacify  and  guide ! 

"Oh,  for  one  hour  of  blind  old  Dandolo!"  Oh,  for  one 
hour  of  bold  old  Harry  Clay  to  rally  what  is  not  worthless  in 
Congress,  and  to  give  heart,  for  its  expression,  to  the  crushed 
conservatism  which  is  tyrannically  silenced  everywhere  south 
of  Eichmond! 

And  this  reminds  me  of  your  inquiry  about  Pettigrew. 
A  letter  to  a  friend  here  says— that  in  all  their  circle  m 
Charleston,  Pettigrew  is  the  only  one  who  cleaves  to  the 
Union  &  his  old  political  loves ! 

In  this  juncture,  it  has  struck  me  to  ask  you  whether  among 
the  leading  moderate  &  conservative  men  in  New  York,  there 
is  not  interest  enough  in  this  border  post  to  induce  aid  to 
a  paper,  which,  if  I  have  the  management  of  it,  will  "be. 
thoroughly  national  as  well  as  fair  to  the  incoming  admin 
istration, —unless  aggression  on  its  part  release  the  Southern 
states  clearly  from  the  bond  of  Union.  Of  such  aggression 
I  have  no  fear:  I  never  had  any.  When  they  put  Hunt  in, 
Parliament,  he  told  them  "the  best  way  to  make  a  tory  was 
to  put  a  radical  on  the  treasury  benches."—  You  remember 
how  suddenly  Eichelieu  recovers,  (in  the  play),  when  endowed 
by  Louis  with  "most  absolute  power"— &>  finds  that,  in  that 
moment:— 

"The  might  of  France  had  passed  into  his  veins. " 

What  a  giant  the  Federal  influence  is,  in  all  conservative 
directions!  Whose  glory  could  be  augmented  by  presiding 
over  the  wreck  of  this  Eepublic?  The  worst  of  it,  alas,  is 
that  South  Carolina  knows  this  quite  as  well  as  you  &  I  do, 
&  therefore  precipitates  an  issue — which  must  occur  "now  or 
never. ' ' 

I  began  this  note  merely  to  write  a  page,  excusing  myself. 
I  have  rambled  into  two  or  three  other  matters— one  of  busi- 


310        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

ness,  the  other  of  old  nationality,  which  none  of  us  can  give 
good  bye  to  without  heart  breaking.  Pray  think  of  the 
Patriot  plan,  under  my  direction,  &  let  me  know  whether  we 
could  not  get  some  material  aid  from  New  York. 

Truly,  your  obliged  friend 


A  few  days  later  I  enclosed  to  Mr.  Mayer  an  extract  from 
the  Richmond  Enquirer  threatening  our  capital  at  Washing 
ton.  To  that  I  received  the  following  very  deliberate  and 
carefully  considered  letter,  the  significance  and  importance 
of  which  consist  in  the  fact  that,  although  one  of  the  most 
temperate,  reasonable  and  thoughtful  men  by  nature  that  had 
become  in  any  way  prominent  in  the  slave  States,  he  still 
made  no  concealment  of  his  convictions  that  slavery  was 
really  more  important  than  the  Union. 


BEANTZ  MAYEE  TO  BIGELOW 

BALTIMOKE,  Dec.  28,  1860. 
My  dear  Mr.  Bigelow: 

I  have  received  yours  of  the  27th  and  the  newspaper  ex 
tract  from  the  Richmond  Enquirer  threatening  the  armed  oc 
cupation  of  the  U.  States  by  Virginia  and  Maryland.  I  am  of 
opinion  that  no  such  project  is,  at  present,  contemplated  by 
the  citizens  of  these  states,  or  that  the  suggestion  receives 
the  least  countenance  from  any  respectable  number  of  our 
citizens.  Speaking  only  for  Maryland,  however,  I  think  I 
may  say,  without  the  least  fear  of  contradiction,  that  our 
state  is  a  Union-loving  and  law-abiding  commonwealth,  & 
will  continue  so  until  nothing  remains  for  hope,— and  resis 
tance  becomes  a  duty. 

I  was  invited  to  a  meeting  of  our  private  citizens  last 
night,  which  was  attended  very  fully  by  persons  of  property, 
discretion,  &  influence.  The  invitation  was  not  a  public  onef 


BRANTZ  MAYER  NOT  A  PROPHET      311 

&  I  never  attended  an  assembly  of  our  people  entitled  to 
equal  respect  or  confidence.  The  paramount  value  of  the 
Union,  &  a  cordial  determination  to  save  it,  were  most  em 
phatically  declared,— nay,— the  expression  on  these  subjects 
was  unanimous.  The  hope  seemed  to  be  in  the  temperate, 
conciliatory  attitude  of  the  Border  states,  &  in  its  main 
tenance.  It  was  resolved,  as  you  will  see  by  the  papers,  to 
hold  a  mass  Union-meeting  in  our  City,  in  the  course  of 
about  a  week;  so  that,  I  feel  confident,  there  will  be  a  speedy 
expression  of  our  City's  will  on  these  subjects  which  cannot 
but  be  salutary,  if  there  is  still  reason  left— North  or  South 
—to  be  addressed  successfully. 

But  I  am  not  a  prophet.  What  the  "next  nine  weeks"— 
(as  you  say)— may  bring  forth,  I  cannot  predict.  The  last 
nine,  you  know,  have  changed  the  whole  aspect  of  the  ques 
tion  ;  &,  from  the  government  of  Constitutional  law  which 
then  prevailed,  we  have  been  unhappily  hurried  to  the  brink 
of  revolution.  One  thing,  however,  permit  me  to  say  to  you. 

No  matter  what  may  have  been  the  moving  impulses  or 
motives  of  the  secessionist  leaders,  the  question  on  which  they 
have  started  the  revolutionary  ball  is  one  that  has  thoroughly 
aroused  the  whole  South;  nor  will  I  believe  that  it  will  halt 
until  it  can  secure— (if  possible  in  the  Union)— a  Constitu 
tional  recognition  of  all  its  just  demands.  The  negro  question, 
as  at  present  viewed,  involves  rights  of  actual  property 
and  future  territorial  rights.  These,  the  South  sincerely 
believes,  will  be  put  in  imminent  jeopardy  under  the  incom 
ing  administration.  The  people,  alarmed  for  their  property 
&  means  of  livelihood,  and  aroused  on  this  subject  perhaps 
beyond  the  original  design  of  their  leaders,  have  taken*  the 
matter  out  of  the  hands  of  the  politicians;  and  accordingly, 
they  say  (&  perhaps  wisely)  that,  having  gone  as  far  as  they 
have,  let  us,  now  &  forever,  settle  this  angry  dispute  by  a 
review  of  our  Constitutional  compact,  so  that  it  may  be,  in  all 
time  to  come,  removed  from  the  political  battle-field. 

I  pray  you  to  regard  this  as  plain,  unexaggerated  fact. 
You  know  me,  I  hope,  sufficiently  to  be  convinced  I  would 
give  you  no  false  information  on  a  topic  or  at  a  time  of  such 
national  danger.  Counsel  justice:  Counsel  Conciliation: 
Counsel  the  kind  word  from  the  powerful  man,  the  powerful 
party,  or  the  powerful  classes,  This  is  due  from  a  Presi- 


312        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

dent  &  party  representing  a  popular  minority,  to  the  Majority 
they  have  defeated  in  a  republic!  It  is  not  inconsistent,  in 
my  humble  judgment,  with  their  dignity  or  their  future  suc 
cess  in  administration.  But  all  such  declarations  of  coercion 
and  all  such  expressions  of  contemptuous  or  school-boy  for 
bearance  as  have  been  recently  uttered  by  some  of  the  Bepub- 
lican  Orators  can  have  no  effect  except  to  estrange  the  willing 
hearts  of  the  Border  States  men  who  are  striving  to  give  rea 
sonable  tone  to  the  demands  which  they  hope  to  insist  on  as 
satisfactory  of  Southern  rights.  "Why  should  this  not  be  so? 
If  you  all  assent  to  what  we  all  agree  to  be  Constitutional  law, 
at  present,— why  cannot  we  make  that  constitutional  law,  so 
ascertained,  part  of  the  Constitution  itself?  Inserted  there, 
in  unmistakable  language,  the  Negro  will  be  forever  out  of 
the  arena.  I  can  very  well  understand  that  this  may  not  suit 
the  purposes  of  many  Northern,  &  of  some  Southern  poli 
ticians;  but  I  am  sure  I  am  addressing  one  who,  at  this  hour, 
transcends  all  politics;  &,  with  the  heart  of  a  true  patriot— 
loving  his  whole  country  in  its  entirety,  &  each  state  in  its 
Unity,  will  do  everything  in  his  power  to  strengthen  the 
national  bond.  Let  not  the  Union  be  broken  up  in  our  day! 
Let  not  us,  who  address  and  influence  masses  by  our  voices 
or  pens,  say  or  print  a  word  that  will  not  tend  to  conciliate 
the  irritated  and  the  rash.  I  counsel,— as  I  would  admit  in 
my  own  case,— wo  yielding  of  principle;  but  I  advise,  (as  in 
this  instance  I  would  act),  that  amid  such  diversities  of  inter 
est  and  opinion,  it  is  our  duty  to  sacrifice  individual  or  stub 
born  views  in  the  spirit  of  honorable  compromise  which 
actuated  such  men  as  Clay  &  Webster  in  times  of  far  less  dan 
ger.  I  think  you  may  safely  rely  on  Maryland  as  a  Union 
State  till  the  last  moment  of  hope.  In  the  middle  of  this 
Union,  we  are,  properly,  mediators  betwixt  the  North  and 
South.  We  are  eminently  conservative  and  peaceful.  But 
the  North  must  not  consider  us  indifferent  to  the  South,  nor 
the  South  imagine  us  heedless  of  its  rights  &  fate.  Its  rights, 
in  our  judgment,  should  be  secured  forever  hereafter  from 
the  hazard  of  all  real  or  electioneering  assaults ;  and  its  fate 
depends  on  that  guaranteed  security,  or  on  its  ability  to 
defend  itself  in  independence.  I  have  much  hope  that  Penn 
sylvania  will  come  to  the  rescue  in  this  time  of  need.  Pennsyl 
vania  is,  in  truth,  as  conservative  as  Maryland  or  Virginia., 


BRANTZ  MAYER  ACCEPTS  AN  OFFICE          313 

Why  should  not  New  York  be  with  us  too  and  thus  yield  their 
two  stout  arms  for  the  Union  to  rest  on? 

Pardon  this  long  letter.  It  is  written,  as  you  see,  with 
some  feeling,  for  it  is  written  with  hope.  That  hope  may  be 
cherished  &  instilled,  even,  by  my  wishes  ;  but  how  can  either 
of  us  bring  himself  to  believe  that  he  will  be  ever  anything, 
in  his  nationality,  but  a  Citizen  of  these  United  States?  I 
have  written,  also,  because  I  trust  that,  believing  the  accuracy 
of  the  opinions  you  have  sought  from  me,  you  will  influence 
others  in  the  view  that  this  is  no  temporary  dispute  of  an 
electioneering  character,  but  a  great,  fundamental,  organic 
question;— the  South  is  in  earnest;— that  these  Border  States 
are  yet  loyal  to  the  Union  &  its  Constitution;  and  that  the 
magnanimous  victors  in  the  late  contest  may  honorably  con 
ciliate,  unless  they  are  resolved  to  destroy. 

I  have  considered  these  matters  altogether  without  refer 
ence  to  the  secession  or  other  conduct  of  S.  Carolina.  That 
is  one  question;  the  settlement  of  the  slave  question,  among 
the  states  still  in  the  Union,  is  another  and  somewhat  inde 
pendent  of  it.  Come,  good  friend,  to  the  rescue  of  all  of  us, 
and  especially  of  all  of  us  in  Maryland,  where  you  have  so 
many  ties.  Maryland  will  be  a  comfortless  spot  in  the  next 
six  months  if  civil  war  result  from  the  apparent  indifference 
of  the  North. 

When  do  you  come  on?  Pray  let  me  hear  from  you,  & 
believe  me,  in  great  haste,  truly  your  obliged  friend 


I  have  not  (of  course)  written  this  hasty  letter  for  publica 
tion  "from  your  Baltimore  Correspondent";  but  if  you  think 
it  could  do  good,  as  coming  from  one  who  is  no  politician  &  a 
very  moderate  person  in  his  politics  generally,  it  is  at  your  dis 
posal.  Correct  the  language  as  you  will,  if  you  print  for  what 
it  may  be  worth  as  giving  one  (&  an  honest,  Maryland)  view 
of  the  matter. 


Here  our  correspondence  terminated.  Though  Mr.  Mayer 
was  unwilling  to  be  identified  with  those  who  were  laboring  to 
preserve  the  integrity  of  the  Union  without  extending  the  ter- 


314        BETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

ritorial  area  of  slavery,  he  condescended  to  accept  an  office— 
paymaster  in  the  army  or  something  of  that  sort— from 
President  Lincoln  shortly  after  the  inauguration,  and  held  it, 
I  believe,  for  the  remainder  of  his  active  life. 

The  letter  of  Mr.  Ehett  which  I  have  quoted  recalls  another 
from  a  very  different  kind  of  person,  also  a  South  Carolinian, 
which  I  received  six  years  before.  It  was  from  Mr.  Petti- 
grew,  then  the  most  eminent  barrister  in  all  the  slave  States, 
if  not  the  only  prominent  man  who  was  willing  to  avow  and 
let  his  neighbors  know  that  he  thought  the  Union  more  im 
portant  than  slavery  to  the  welfare  of  the  country.  He  is  re 
ferred  to  in  one  of  the  preceding  letters  of  Mr.  Mayer  as  ' '  the 
only  one  who  cleaves  to  the  Union  and  his  old  political  loves. ' ' 
I  had  written  to  him  to  learn  if  he  would  tell  me  how  far  the 
complimentary  dinner  given  to  Brooks,  one  of  the  ruffians 
who  assaulted  Charles  Sumner  in  the  Senate  Chamber  at 
Washington,  and  the  complimentary  speeches  and  threats 
made  by  Brooks 's  uncle,  Senator  Butler,  at  that  dinner, 
reflected  the  sentiment  or  expressed  the  prevailing  feeling  of 
the  people  of  the  South,  especially  of  South  Carolina.  Though 
I  have  no  copy  of  the  letter,  I  rather  infer,  from  the  tenor  of 
the  reply,  that  I  probably  asked  him  to  allow  me  the  privilege 
of  giving  his  answer  to  the  public. 

Mr.  Pettigrew  lived  and  died  a  Union  man— a  privilege 
which  he  purchased  at  a  great  price.  It  made  him  speech 
less  and  powerless  to  assist  others.  No  doubt  there  were 
many  sharing  his  convictions,  and,  like  him, 

Eyeless  in  Gaza,  at  the  mill  with  slaves, 
Himself  in  bonds  under  Philistian  yoke. 


L.  PETTIGEEW  TO  BIGELOW 

SULLIVAN  ISLAND,  Oct.  25,  1856. 
Sir: 

It  was  only  last  night  that  I  received  your  letter  of  the 
llth  inst.  on  my  return  to  this  place,  and  I  sympathise  so 
much  with  your  feelings  on  the  subject  of  the  Union  that  I 


A  SOUTHERN  UNIONIST'S  DIAGNOSIS          315 

lose  no  time  in  acknowledging  it.  But  I  can  do  so  only  on 
the  condition  that  this  communication  be  considered  strictly 
private,  for  nothing  could  induce  me  in  the  present  condition 
of  the  public  mind  to  depart  from  the  line  which  I  have  pre 
scribed  for  myself:  and  nothing  in  reference  to  the  common 
good  as  well  as  my  own  comfort  could  be  more  injudicious 
than  to  do  so. 

I  do  not  know  whether  the  report  of  Senator  Butler's 
speech  at  the  Brooks  dinner  is  correct,  but  such  expressions 
are  so  common  and  have  been  uttered  so  habitually  of  late 
years,  that  altho  I  read  an  account  of  the  proceedings  on  that 
occasion,  I  retain  no  recollection  of  what  he  was  reported 
to  have  said.  This  indifference  is  owing  in  some  measure  to 
the  well  founded  conviction  that  there  is  great  exaggeration 
in  the  most  of  the  speeches  that  are  made,  and  that  many  of 
those  who  are  loudest  in  denouncing  the  Union  are  reluctantly 
forced  along  by  the  popular  current.  Still  it  must  be  con 
fessed  that  the  public  mind  in  South  Carolina  is  inflamed 
with  revolutionary  ideas  to  a  great  degree ;  and  if  the  Union 
depended  on  the  action  of  this  state,  there  is  too  much  reason 
to  believe  that  the  movement  party  would  control  our  destiny. 
That  party  are  kept  in  check  by  the  apprehension  of  being 
isolated,  and  left  out  of  the  councils  of  the  Southern  states. 
In  1852  they  receded  from  the  brink  of  action  for  that  reason 
—to  the  great  joy,  no  doubt,  of  a  great  many  of  their  hottest 
partisans,  who  had  no  taste  for  the  scenes  of  a  revolution, 
but  joined  in  the  cry  for  the  sake  of  maintaining  their  credits. 

It  may  be  taken  for  granted  that  the  South  would  not  stand 
emancipation  nor  anything  like  it;  but  I  have  no  idea  that 
Mr.  Fremont's  election  would  of  itself  effect  any  rising  of 
the  masses  against  the  Government.  A  great  deal  would 
depend  on  the  address  and  ability  that  he  might  evince  in 
the  Presidential  chair.  If  he  should,  like  Pierce,  re-echo  the 
cry  of  his  party,  and  send  out  manifestoes  in  the  tone  of  the 
North,  as  Pierce  has  done  in  that  of  the  South,  no  one  could 
answer  for  the  consequences.  But  as  I  have  a  high  opinion 
of  Mr.  Fremont's  ability,  I  do  not  feel  my  sense  of  security 
in  the  Union  at  all  diminished  by  the  prospect  of  his  election. 
Nor  did  I  entertain  any  other  sentiments  when  that  event 
seemed  more  probable  than  it  does  at  present.  Whether  Mr. 
Buchanan  is  likely  to  be  as  much  of  a  tool  as  the  Present 


316       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Incumbent,  and  whether  the  North  would  bear  four  years 
more  of  aggression  at  home  and  abroad,  with  Missouri  Com 
promise  and  Foreign  Territory,  you  can  judge  far  better  than 
myself;  and  it  is  from  this  quarter  that  the  danger,  as  it 
seems  to  me,  is  most  likely  to  come. 

With  the  highest  appreciation  of  the  sentiment  of  loyalty 
to  the  Constitution  of  1787,  and  the  Government  which  it 
established,  and  to  the  American  name,  which  breathes  in 
your  letter,  I  am,  dear  Sir, 

Your  Ob't  Serv't 


PRESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

OGDENSBUKGH,  Nov.  12,  1860. 
My  Dear  Friend: 

I  think  there  is  no  danger  of  Lincoln  making  any  declara 
tion  to  anticipate  the  day  of  his  inauguration,  but  I  am  glad 
that  Mr.  Bryant  wrote1— for  we  cannot  be  too  secure  upon 
such  a  point. 

I  trust  all  is  well  and  I  congratulate  you  on  the  result  of 
the  Election. 

I  hope  our  friend  Tilden  is  satisfied  with  your  answer  and 
the  Country's  to  his  letter  to  Mr.  Kent. 

With  my  kindest  remembrance  to  Mrs.  Bigelow  and  all 
yours, 

Yours  truly 


PBESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  Deer.  3d,  1860. 
Dear  Sir: 

I  reached  here  Saturday  evening  and  have  not  yet  seen  or 
heard  any  thing  very  different  from  the  usual  sights  and 

1  Mr.  Greeley  of  the  Tribune  had  been  indulging  in  some  of  what  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  biographers  termed  "damaging  vagaries"  about  "peaceable  secession," 
and  it  was  to  warn  him  against  any  such  policy  that  Mr.  Bryant  wrote  the 
letter  referred  to. 


COMPROMISE  WITH  SECESSION  IMPOSSIBLE     317 

sounds  on  the  day  of  the  meeting  of  Congress.  So  far  as  I 
have  heard  the  disposition  on  the  part  of  our  friends  is  to 
make  no  proposition  to  the  Slave  propagandists.  Mr.  Seward 
says  our  true  course  is  to  watch  and  wait  in  silence.  I  do  not 
find  any  republican  willing  to  entertain  the  idea  of  extending 
slavery.  Mr.  Weed's  article  suggesting  the  Missouri  line  is 
the  subject  of  some  conversation.  I  hope  no  evil  will  come  of 
its  suggestion.  All  that  Mr.  Calhoun  wanted  in  1847  was  the 
extension  of  the  Missouri  line  to  the  Pacific.  It  would  give 
to  Slavery  all  it  need  to  wish  for.  On  the  meeting  of  the  two 
Houses  today  at  noon  a  full  opportunity  will  be  had  to  see 
the  temper  of  Congress.  Though  there  may  be  no  demon 
stration  in  words,  I  shall  be  still  if  our  friends  will  be  dis 
posed  to  hear  propositions  and  suggestions  instead  of  making 
them.  Yours  truly 


PEESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  Deer.  25,  1860. 
My  Dear  Sir: 

Yours  of  21.  duly  reed,  and  on  this  Christmas  night,  of 
which  I  wish  a  great  many  merry  returns  to  you  &  all  yours, 
it  is  pleasant  to  turn  one's  mind  from  the  jarring  events  and 
thoughts  that  crowd  upon  us  here  to  the  happy  family  group 
of  which  you  are  the  center. 

I  have  no  doubt  you  have  taken  the  correct  view  of  the  con 
dition  and  character  of  the  administration  and  of  the  pur 
poses  and  hopes  of  the  Secessionists.  Some  of  them  talk  of 
the  secession  as  only  a  temporary  thing— of  making  terms 
and  of  reunion.  I  do  not  think  any  compromise  whatever 
practicable.  The  secessionists  require  that  slaves  shall  be 
put  upon  the  same  footing  as  horses  and  that  the  owners  shall 
have  the  same  rights  in  both— in  other  words  to  establish 
slavery  by  a  provision  of  the  constitution  throughout  the 
Union. 

We  may  have  bloodshed,  though  I  hope  it  will  be  avoided. 


318        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

But  it  is  impossible  that  the  end  of  these  things  should  not 
be  good  for  the  country  and  good  for  mankind.  This  glorious 
Union,  the  essence  of  our  free  form  of  Government  and  the 
hope  of  our  race  of  every  kindred  and  tongue,  will  outlive  all 
its  enemies. 

My  kind  remembrances  to  Mrs.  Bigelow. 

Yours  truly 


PEESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  Deer.  31,  1860. 
Dear  Friend: 

I  reed  yours  of  Dec.  29  by  Sunday's  mail.  The  idea  you 
suggest  occurred  to  me  a  fortnight  ago— and  I  talked  with  the 
Blairs  and  with  Trumbull  about  it.  Mr.  Trumbull,  who  has 
spent  the  summer  and  fall  with  his  family  at  the  House  of 
his  wife's  Father  in  Springfield,  said  the  subject  of  when  he 
should  come  on  had  been  talked  of  some  and  that  Mr.  Lin 
coln  did  not  intend  to  come  to  Washington  till  the  last  of 
February,  that  after  he  came  here  he  could  have  no  time  to 
himself  &  that  he  intended  to  remain  at  home  as  long  as  he 
could  properly  do  so  and  that  he  meant  to  have  his  cabinet  all 
settled  before  he  got  here.  I  will  talk  with  Mr.  Trumbull 
again,  tho  it  is  not  likely  he  will  change  his  arrangement  made, 
to  be  sure,  before  any  such  cause  as  your  idea  suggests  existed 
—but  we  will  see.  I  hope  we  are  to  go  through  our  diffi 
culties  with  less  trouble  than  the  mutterings  of  treason 
threaten.  I  have  hopes  of  good  results  from  the  Messages 
of  all  our  Governors  and  prompt  declarations  of  our  legis 
latures  which  meet  within  10  days— but  whatever  comes  in 
the  shape  of  Treason  must  be  met  and  consigned  to  a 
Traitor's  doom. 

We  shall  have  time  after  this  10  days  or  so  for  any  prepa 
ration  that  may  be  necessary  to  take  care  that  the  Capitol 
does  not  fall  into  hands  hostile  to  our  Country— of  which  I 
have  no  apprehension. 

Yours  truly 


I  WITHDRAW  FROM  WM.  C.  BRYANT  &  CO.        319 

Shortly  after  the  election  in  November  which  resulted  in 
the  triumph  of  the  Eepublican  party  and  the  elevation  of 
Mr.  Lincoln  to  the  Presidency,  Mr.  Godwin,  son-in-law  of 
Mr.  Bryant,  called  at  my  office  in  the  Evening  Post,  and  said 
he  had  a  favor  to  ask  of  me.  I  answered  in  the  language  of 
the  gallant  Frenchman :  *  *  If  it  is  possible  I  will  grant  it,  and 
if  not  I  will  try."  He  wished  me  to  write  a  letter  to  Mr. 
Chase,  whose  selection  for  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  had 
been  already  decided  upon,  recommending  him,  Godwin,  for 
Naval  Officer,  a  position  he  had  once  before  occupied,  or  for 
some  other  remunerative  place  in  the  New  York  custom-house. 

I  replied  with  some  warmth:  "For  God's  sake,  Godwin, 
don't  go  back  into  the  custom-house.  That  is  not  a  suitable 
place  for  you.  Do  anything  but  that." 

He  said  in  substance:  "I  share  your  aversion  for  such  an 
employment,  but  I  have  practically  no  choice.  My  health  is 
very  much  impaired.  I  can  no  longer  depend  on  my  pen  for 
a  livelihood,  and  this  seems  to  be  the  most  available  resource. ' ' 

After  a  few  more  words  exchanged  between  us  to  sub 
stantially  the  same  import,  I  said  to  him:  "Godwin,  buy  out 
my  interest  in  the  Evening  Post  and  come  in  here  and  make 
your  fortune." 

This  proposition  took  him  entirely  by  surprise,  and  at  first 
he  was  not  disposed  to  think  me  serious.  Nor  was  this  sur 
prising,  for  till  within  the  previous  ten  minutes  the  idea  of 
selling  my  interest  in  the  Evening  Post  had  not  entered  my 
head.  When  he  found  that  I  was  speaking  seriously,  he 
said :  "  Of  course  I  should  be  very  glad  to  become  a  part  pro 
prietor  of  the  Evening  Post,  but  in  such  a  case  it  would  be  on 
condition  that  you  remained  in  it." 

I  said:  "No,  that  is  out  of  the  question.  A  small  interest 
in  the  Evening  Post  would  absorb  just  as  much  of  my  time 
and  care  as  a  large  one.  I  will  not  diminish  my  interest  unless 
I  extinguish  it. ' ' 

Then  he  said:  "I  can't  buy  such  a  property.  You  know  I 
have  no  money." 

"You  need  none;  your  partners  will  allow  you  to  pay  for 
your  share  out  of  the  dividends,  if  you  would  be  agreeable  to 
them  as  partners,  without  which,  of  course,  I  would  sell  to 
sne." 
How  much  do  you  want  for  your  share?"  he  then  asked. 


320        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

I  said  I  did  not  know,  for  I  had  never  thought,  until  this 
moment,  of  selling  it  at  all;  but  I  said  that  "at  the  rate  at 
which  I  will  sell  it  to  you,  if  managed  no  worse  than  it  has 
been  for  the  last  five  years,  it  will  give  you  an  independent 
fortune  in  ten  years,  besides  paying  all  your  ordinary  living 
expenses.  The  first  thing  for  you  to  do,"  I  added,  "is  to 
ascertain  whether  the  change  I  propose  woulS  be  agreeable 
to  my  partners.  As  soon  as  that  point  is  settled,  come  to 
me ;  and  meantime  I  will  prepare  myself  to  name  a  price  over 
which  you  will  require  no  time  for  deliberation. ' ' 

He  came  to  me  in  a  day  or  two  and  said  that  my  partners 
assented  to  the  sale  if  such  was  my  wish.  I  then  told  him  my 
price  for  my  interest,  which  was  one-third  of  the  whole  prop 
erty,  payment  to  be  guaranteed  by  the  firm  of  Wm.  C.  Bryant 
&Co. 

Mr.  Godwin  knew  enough  of  the  business  affairs  of  the 
Evening  Post  to  need  no  time  to  deliberate  over  this  proposi 
tion.  I  have  no  doubt  now  that  if  either  of  my  partners  had 
wished  to  sell  he  would  have  asked  at  least  $100,000  more  than 
I  asked,  and  that  if  I  had  asked  that  sum  additional  I  should 
have  received  it  with  as  little  hesitation. 

Mr.  Godwin  took  my  place  in  the  firm  on  the  15th  of  Janu 
ary,  1861,  and,  I  may  as  well  here  add,  inside  of  ten  years 
from  that  time  sold  out  his  interest  to  his  partners  for  a  much 
larger  interest  than  I  had  received  for  it  from  him,  about 
double  I  was  told,  and,  as  I  had  promised  him,  he  retired  with 
an  independent  fortune. 

I  became  a  proprietor  of  three-tenths  of  the  Evening  Post 
in  November,  1848.  Subsequently  my  share  was  increased  to 
a  full  third.  The  whole  had  cost  me  $17,100.  I  was  told 
that  Mr.  Henderson,  our  business  partner,  sold  his  third  to 
Mr.  Villard  some  years  later  for  $500,000. 

The  net  income  of  the  Evening  Post  property  for  the  year 
ending  November  15,  1850,  was  $15,708.31.  For  the  year 
ending  November  15,  1860,  it  was  $68,774.23.  In  the  twelve 
years  that  I  had  spent  on  the  paper,  I  had  managed  to  pay  out 
of  its  earnings  what  it  cost  me ;  I  had  lived  very  comfortably ; 
I  had  purchased  a  country  place  of  considerable  value ;  I  had 
had  two  trips  to  the  West  Indies,  to  which  I  devoted  five  or 
six  months,  and  a  tour  in  Europe  with  all  my  family,  of  nine 
teen  months;  and  was  able  to  retire  with  a  property  which 


THE  GOLDEN  AGE  WHEN  GOLD  DID  NOT  REIGN  321 

could  not  be  fairly  valued  at  less  than  $175,000.  That  was 
not  a  large  fortune  for  a  man  in  the  middle  of  the  journey  of 
life  to  retire  upon  even  in  those  days.  It  now  seems  barely 
enough  to  begin  life  with.  To  me,  however,  it  promised  all 
that  wealth  could  give  me.  The  Golden  Age  in  my  imagina 
tion  then,  was  the  age  when  gold  did  not  reign. 

Speaking  after  the  manner  of  men,  the  sale  of  my  interest 
in  the  Evening  Post  at  this  time  was  an  improvident  proceed 
ing.  I  was  in  the  enjoyment  of  an  income  from  it  of  about 
$25,000  a  year,  of  which  I  had  no  occasion  nor  inclination  to 
spend  more  than  a  third.  In  five  years  more  I  could  have 
nearly  doubled  my  estate,  and  then  sold  my  interest  for  as 
much  again  as  I  received  for  it.  It  was  a  rash,  because  a 
hasty  and  inconsiderate,  decision,  and  adopted  without  con 
sultation  with  any  one,  not  even  my  wife.  But,  rash  as  it 
was,  I  never  repented  of  it  for  a  moment,  nor  do  I  now.  Twice 
the  opportunity  of  returning  to  the  Evening  Post  was  offered 
to  me,  and  twice  declined.  I  had  realized  a  modest  com 
petence,  which  was  all  I  had  ever  aspired  to.  I  had  never 
any  taste  for  the  accumulation  or  management  of  large 
wealth.  I  went  into  journalism  because  I  was  not  specially 
attached  to  the  profession  in  which  I  had  been  trained,  and 
did  take  a  profound  interest  in  the  public  questions  which  in 
those  days  seemed  of  paramount  importance.  While  in  the 
Evening  Post  the  pecuniary  returns  were  the  very  least  of 
my  concern.  I  received  a  monthly  statement  of  its  affairs, 
which  gave  me  all  the  information  upon  that  subject  which  I 
ever  possessed  or  desired.  I  do  not  remember  to  have  ever 
inspected  the  books  of  the  firm  during  the  whole  twelve  years 
that  I  was  a  member  of  it.  My  partners  enjoyed  my  entire 
confidence;  and  all  my  energies  and  interests  were  concen 
trated  upon  my  editorial  duties,  which  were  very  absorbing. 
I  entered  upon  them  in  1848,  when  the  regular  delegates  of 
our  Democratic  State  Convention  had  just  been  practically 
excluded  from  the  National  Democratic  Convention  for  the 
nomination  of  a  President,  at  Baltimore,  because  they  had 
been  instructed  to  oppose  the  extension  of  slavery  into  new 
territories.  I  left  immediately  after  the  people  of  the  United 
States  had  vindicated  the  action  of  the  New  York  Democracy 
of  1848  by  the  election  of  President  Lincoln,  which  signified 
the  denationalization  of  chattel  slavery. 


322        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

In  the  twelve  years  >  struggle  which  culminated  in  these 
results,  I  had  borne  my  part  to  the  best  of  my  ability.  I  felt 
that  my  work  as  a  journalist  was  done,  and  I  yearned  for 
the  congenial  repose  of  my  library. 

Not  many  days  after  my  retirement  from  the  Evening  Post, 
proposals  were  made  to  me  to  take  charge  of  the  World,  with 
the  promise  of  unlimited  means  and  cordial  relations  with 
the  new  Administration,  in  the  highest  degree  flattering  to  me 
and  advantageous  to  the  paper;  and  on  the  28th  of  January 
a  paragraph  appeared  in  the  New  York  Tribune  stating  that  a 
rumor  was  current  that  I  was  to  edit  the  World  and  make  it 
a  Eepublican  paper.  I  thereupon  addressed  a  note  to  Mr. 
Bryant,  stating  that  if  he  wished  to  close  the  mouths  of  gos 
sips  about  our  affairs  he  might  say  that  the  report  of  my 
going  into  the  World  was  unfounded ;  and  if  he  thought  it  best 
to  assign  a  reason  for  my  retiring  from  the  Evening  Post,  he 
might  say  that  I  had  realized  all  the  ends  which  I  had  had 
in  view  when  I  embraced  the  profession  of  journalism,  and 
that  if  I  had  occasion  to  continue  in  it,  I  could  never  hope 
for  a  connection  more  pleasant  or  satisfactory  than  the  one 
which  had  just  been  sundered. 

Two  days  later  the  following  paragraph  from  the  pen  of 
Mr.  Bryant  appeared  in  the  Evening  Post: 

Within  a  few  days  past,  a  change  has  taken  place  in  the  proprietor 
ship  of  the  Evening  Post.  Mr.  Bigelow  retires,  and  is  succeeded  by 
Mr.  Parke  Godwin,  who  for  more  than  two  years  past  has  been  asso 
ciated  in  the  conduct  of  the  journal.  That  there  may  be  no  misunder 
standing  as  to  the  cause  ef  this  change,  it  may  perhaps  be  well  to  say 
that  Mr.  Bigelow,  having  fully  realized  all  the  ends  which  he  proposed 
to  himself  in  embracing  the  profession  of  journalism,  desires  to  betake 
himself  to  pursuits  more  consonant  to  his  tastes.  He  leaves  the 
Evening  Post  in  a  condition  of  prosperity  greater  than  it  ever  before 
enjoyed,  and  although  we  who  remain  are  hereafter  to  miss  the  advan 
tage  of  his  association,  we  do  not  the  less  cordially  wish  him  equal 
success  in  whatever  province  his  fine  talents  may  be  employed.1 

1  On  the  death  of  Mr.  Bryant,  in  1878,  the  property  of  the  firm  of  Win.  C. 
Bryant  &  Co.  passed  into  other  hands.  The  files  of  the  New  York  Evening  Post 
from  its  origin  in  November,  1801,  to  the  date  of  this  transfer  were  subsequently 
presented  by  their  new  proprietors  to  the  Lenox  Library,  now  the  "New 
York  Public  Library,  Astor,  Lenox  and  Tilden  Foundations."  I  believe  it  to 
be  the  oldest  file  of  any  daily  paper  published  in  the  city  of  New  York,  or 
perhaps  in  the  United  States,  that  has  been  issued  under  the  same  name  with- 


MY  WITHDRAWAL  FROM  JOURNALISM         323 

The  day  before  my  connection  with  the  firm  of  Wm.  C. 
Bryant  &  Co.  terminated,  I  wrote  to  Senator  Preston  King, 
one  of  the  wisest  and  most  faithful  friends  I  ever  had,  the 
following: 


BIGELOW  TO  PEESTON  KING 

NEW  YORK,  Jan.  14,  1861. 
M y  dear  Friend: 

I  have  sold  my  interest  in  the  Evening  Post  to  Mr.  Godwin 
and  my  responsibilities  for  its  management  will  terminate 
to-morrow. 

Of  my  career  in  the  firm  of  Wm.  C.  Bryant  &  Co.,  though  I 
have  done  many  things  that  I  would  wish  not  to  have  done, 
on  the  whole  I  am  not  ashamed.  With  all  my  short-comings 
I  am  satisfied  with  my  success.  When  I  joined  it  in  Novem 
ber  1848,  the  daily  circulation  of  the  paper  was  less  than  1500, 
and  the  income  from  our  property  the  first  year  was  only 
$11,397.  Its  income  the  last  year  was  about  $75,000.  The 
income  from  the  job  office  the  last  six  months  of  the  first  year 
after  I  bought,  was  but  $14.  For  the  last  six  months  of  the 
year  just  closed  it  was  $7295.  When  I  entered  the  firm,  the 
Evening  Post  was  at  war  with  the  Federal  and  with  the  State 
and  City  governments  of  New  York,  and  had  just  become  in 
volved  in  a  rebellion  which  made  it  odious  to  the  commercial 
community  from  which  it  mainly  drew  its  breath.  Without 
changing  its  principles,  and  without  faltering  in  its  course,  it 
has  lived  to  witness  the  triumph  of  its  principles  in  the  elec 
tion  of  a  Federal  President^  and  the  banner  under  which  it 

out  interruption  to  the  present  time.  I  will  not  disclaim  a  certain  pride  in 
having  been  associated  for  a  considerable  period  of  years  in  the  management 
of  an  organ  of  public  opinion  which  is  able  to  give  such  conspicuous,  not  to 
say  unique,  evidence  of  its  durable  character.  Nor  is  it  without  a  certain 
feeling  of  personal  satisfaction  that  I  recall  the  facts  that  the  term  of  my 
association  with  the  Evening  Post  was  the  most  critical  period  of  its  entire 
history,  and  that,  when  I  retired,  I  left  it  in  the  enjoyment  of  an  authority  as 
an  organ  of  public  opinion  which,  however  it  may  have  deserved  it,  it  had 
never  enjoyed  before,  and  in  a  condition  of  unprecedented  financial  pros 
perity. 


324        BETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

has  fought  floating  over  the  Capitol  of  every  non-slaveholding 
state  in  the  country.  During  the  twelve  years  I  have  shared 
its  fortunes,  it  has  yielded  myself  and  family  a  respectable 
support;  it  has  enabled  me  to  spend  nineteen  months  with 
them  in  Europe  and  has  yielded  me  about  $15,000  a  year 
besides,  upon  which  I  am  enabled  to  retire  and  devote  myself 
without  interruption  to  more  congenial  pursuits.  Is  not  this, 
for  a  man  of  no  more  merits  than  I  possess  at  43  years  of  age, 
a  result— I  will  not  say  to  be  proud  of,  for  nothing  that  any 
man  ever  did  in  the  world  was  properly  a  source  of  pride  to 
him,— but  to  be  grateful  for  and  content  with?  Whether  it 
be  or  not,  I  am  content  and  pray  God  to  make  me  suitably 
grateful.  It  is  something,  too,  that  my  children  may  here 
after  reflect  upon  with  pleasure  that  I  have  been  thus  inti 
mately  associated  with  the  first  literary  man  of  America  and 
the  greatest  living  poet,  to  my  taste,  for  twelve  years,  with 
out  a  word  ever  passing  between  us  not  consistent  with  the 
most  entire  respect  for  and  confidence  in  each  other. 

I  shall  remain  in  town  until  Spring,  partly  on  account 
of  Mrs.  Bigelow,  who  expects  to  be  confined  in  about  a  month, 
and  partly  to  watch  the  extraordinary  and  unprecedented 
spectacle  of  an  insurrection  provoked  entirely  by  prospective 
grievances.  It  is  your  privilege  to  be  a  conspicuous  actor 
in  the  most  critical  passage  of  our  history,  and  I  will  say  that 
I  was  never  so  glad  as  I  have  been  since  the  need  of  sterling 
men  in  the  Senate  has  begun  most  acutely  to  be  felt,  that  you 
were  there.  Your  bearding  of  Davis  the  other  day  thrilled 
the  whole  community.  Seward's  speech  disappointed  the 
people  here,  but  it  offended  no  one.  It  would  have  offended 
or  disgusted  many  if  it  had  satisfied  the  expectations  or  hopes 
of  any.  He  wisely  declined  to  make  himself  the  target  of  a 
malicious  opposition  by  tendering  any  affirmative  proposi 
tions.  It  did  not  become  him  to  have  his  administration 
defeated  before  it  was  born,  to  come  dead  into  the  world,  as 
it  certainly  would  have  done  if  such  an  opportunity  as  was 
anticipated  had  been  offered  to  his  adversaries  to  combine 
against  him.  I  pray  God  to  inspire  you  all  with  His  wisdom 
and  love,  and  to  keep  all  our  people  under  His  protection. 
Your  sincere  friend 


OLMSTED  AND  CENTRAL  PARK  COMMISSION    325 
PEESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  Jany.  21, 1861. 
My  Dear  Friend: 

I  thank  you  for  your  letter  of  Jany.  14.  Your  career  in 
the  Post  is  what  any  good  man  should  be  gratified  with.  It 
has  been  honorable  and  profitable  to  you  and  its  influence  for 
the  good  of  your  Country  has  been  of  inestimable  value. 
Neither  you  nor  any  man  can  ever  know  how  much  you  have 
contributed  to  prepare  the  people  to  meet  and  overcome  the 
peril  that  now  threatens  the  Country,  a  peril  that  must 
come;  for  its  germ  is  older  than  the  Eepublic.  May  a  good 
Providence  guide  us  safely  through. 

I  do  not  doubt  you  have  acted  wisely.  May  the  Evening 
Post  continue  to  flourish  in  its  noble  career— and  may  yours 
be  all  I  think  your  worth  deserves. 

I  should  be  very  glad  if  I  could  have  a  talk  with  you. 

Yours  Truly 


The  seven  or  eight  months  which  immediately  succeeded 
my  retirement  from  the  Evening  Post  were  spent  mainly  in 
enlarging  my  country  home  at  Highland  Falls  and  in  perfect 
ing  my  apparatus  for  a  literary  enterprise  upon  which  my 
mind  had  been  fixed  for  a  couple  of  years  or  more— the  biog 
raphy  of  Fenelon,  Archbishop  of  Cambray. 

It  was  doubtless  at  the  prompting  of  Mr.  Bryant  that  his 
daughter  Julia,  whose  death  occurred  in  the  summer  of  1908, 
wrote  the  following  letter  invoking  Mr.  Tilden's  aid  in  defeat 
ing  a  scheme  on  foot  to  deprive  the  Central  Park  Commission 
of  the  invaluable  services  of  Frederick  Law  Olmsted,  its  land 
scape-gardener  : 


326        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

JULIA  BEYANT  TO  S.  J.  TILDEN 

[January  12, 1861.] 
Dear  Mr.  Tilden, 

Mr.  Olmsted's  friends,  among  whom  we  number  ourselves,  are  very 
much  disturbed  at  the  movement  of  the  Park  Commissioners  towards 
displacing  him— as  the  advisory  position  they  propose  for  him  is 
merely  of  a  nominal  character. 

The  completion  of  the  Park  is  the  excuse  given  for  his  removal,  while 
in  reality,  the  work  there  can  never  be  completed.— Trees  &  shrubs 
grow,  &  must  be  removed,  or  replaced ;  and  nature  in  a  thousand  ways 
needs,  day  after  day,  to  keep  its  beauty  in  proper  bounds,  the  care  and 
attention  that  can  only  be  suitably  given  by  a  skillful  hand  like  his. 
It  would  then  be  worse  than  folly  to  dismiss  so  able  a  man  as  Mr.  Olm- 
sted,  who  will  be  eagerly  sought  for  in  other  cities,  &  who  could  not 
be  recalled  at  pleasure. 

I  wish  to  beg  in  my  Father's  name  &  my  own  that  you  will  consider 
this  important  matter  &  will  kindly  use  your  influence  with  the  Park 
Commissioners  &  also  with  others  who  have  the  decision  in  this  matter. 
Mr.  Lane,  the  new  Park  Commissioner,  will  be  at  the  Century  Club, 
probably,  this  evening. 

Yours  very  truly 
Saturday  evening, 

24  West  16"  St. 

This  matter  will  be  decided,  I  understand,  next  Wednesday,  Jan.  16". 


THE  CRISIS  OF  POPULAR  SOVEREIGNTY 

DURING  the  four  years  of  our  Civil  War  in  which  we 
were  now  engaged  the  representative  system  of  gov 
ernment  was  subjected  to  the  most  serious  trials  it 
has  ever  had  to  surmount.  In  the  infancy  of  the  Republic, 
with  an  empty  treasury  and  an  untried  Constitution,  it  had 
shown  its  ability  to  defy  and  cope  successfully  with  foreign 
foes ;  but  it  had  never  before  been  required  to  show  its  ability 
to  contend  with  the  most  formidable  enemy  of  nations  as  of 
individuals :  a  degree  of  material  prosperity  without  example 
in  history— the  enemies  of  its  own  household.  It  had  abun 
dantly  shown  that  it  knew  how  to  cultivate  the  arts  of  peace. 
Would  it  be  equally  fortunate  in  battling  with  the  enemies 
begotten  of  its  prosperity? 

Had  the  Rebellion  which  was  then  desolating  the  United 
States  resulted  in  a  definitive  separation,  such  result  would 
have  been  regarded,  and  with  reason,  as  a  symptom  of  weakness 
inherent  in  all  republican  governments.  The  whole  world 
would  then  have  been  warranted  in  asking,  ' '  What  right,  have 
you  to  offer  your  system  of  government  as  a  model  for  other 
nations?  You  cannot  save  yourself. "  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
peace  was  to  be  restored  without  a  rupture  of  the  Union  or 
the  sacrifice  of  any  of  those  great  popular  privileges  which 
had  been  its  pride  and  glory,  it  would  then  be  necessary  for 
the  world  to  recognize  that  the  American  system  of  govern 
ment  had  given  evidence  of  an  incomparable  force  and  vital 
ity.  Upon  these  two  propositions  there  is  not  likely  to  be 
much  difference  of  opinion. 

There  would  yet  remain,  however,  one  grave  problem  to 
solve.  How  has  the  American  Constitution  received  such  a 

327 


328        KETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

serious  assault  without  a  timely  alarm  having  been  given  and 
adequate  precautions  taken  against  it!  Is  that  system  of 
government  worthy  of  confidence  under  which  a  vast  con 
spiracy  for  its  overthrow  can  be  organized  within  its  own 
borders,  by  the  people  of  its  own  household,  and  attain  such 
proportions  as  to  defy  the  sovereign  authority  and  to 
maintain  for  a  series  of  years  a  contest  as  impoverishing  as 
sanguinary! 

It  would  be  necessary  to  answer  this  question  in  the  nega 
tive  unless  it  could  be  demonstrated  that  this  Eebellion  was 
of  an  altogether  exceptional  character  and  was  due  to  essen 
tially  temporary  causes,  without  the  possibility  of  a  recur 
rence  of  its  provocation. 

That  the  Eebellion  had  its  origin  in  the  slavery  question, 
complicated  by  the  natural  conflict  between  distinct  and  com 
petitive  systems  of  labor,  will  be  generally  conceded.  But 
that  is  not  a  sufficient  explanation.  Had  the  harmony  of  the 
States  been  disturbed  by  no  other  provocations  than  these,  it 
is  altogether  probable,  if  not  certain,  that  their  differences 
would  never  have  cost  a  drop  of  blood.  Unhappily,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  career  of  the  young  Republic,  as  at  the  origin 
of  the  human  race  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  an  imprudent  con 
cession  was  made,  which,  like  all  transactions  with  evil,  in 
evitably  led  to  discord  and  violence.  This  concession  was 
comprised  in  the  article  of  our  Federal  Constitution  which 
confers  upon  the  proprietors  of  slaves  certain  exclusive  priv 
ileges  of  great  political  importance.  By  the  terms  of  this 
article,  which  determined  for  each  State  the  number  of  its 
representatives  in  Congress  that  were  to  make  its  laws,  three- 
fifths  of  all  the  slaves  were  counted  as  the  equivalent  of  that 
number  of  white  men,  so  that,  prior  to  the  election  of  the  Con 
gress  of  1861,  the  slave  States  possessed  thirty  representatives 
more  than  were  accorded  to  a  corresponding  number  of  citi 
zens  of  the  non-slaveholding  States.  Each  seat  thus  obtained 
was  of  course  in  flagrant  derogation  of  the  rights  of  those 
States  which,  having  no  slaves,  were  not  proportionately  rep 
resented. 

This  distinction  between  the  owners  of  slaves  and  the  pos 
sessors  of  other  kinds  of  property  was  totally  irreconcilable 
with  the  fundamental  principle  of  popular  sovereignty  and 
became  a  steadily  progressive  grievance .  to  the  free-labor 
States.  The  fact  that  the  possession  of  five  negro  slaves  con- 


THE   CRISIS  OF  POPULAR  SOVEREIGNTY       329 

f erred  upon  a  citizen  of  a  slave  State  the  same  political  pre 
rogatives  as  were  enjoyed  by  three  whites,  in  addition  to  his 
own  vote,  induced  their  proprietors  to  desire  to  increase  the 
number  of  their  slaves  as  rapidly  as  possible  and  to  regard  as 
a  national  wrong  any  attempts  made  to  discredit  a  species 
of  property  yielding  them  such  advantages.  To  this  feeling 
must  in  part  be  attributed  the  domestic  enormities  and  abom 
inable  atrocities  which  have  been  so  deplorably  common  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Potomac  Eiver.  Opposition  to  slavery 
in  any  form  became  the  only  crime  for  the  punishment  of 
which  the  people  residing  in  the  slave  States  were  never 
willing  to  await  the  deliberate  decisions  of  constitutional 
tribunals. 

It  was  impracticable  theoretically  or  practically  for  these 
two  social  and  political  systems  to  dwell  together  in  harmony. 
A  society  founded  on  the  degradation  of  the  laboring  classes, 
and  where  consequently  all  manual  labor  degrades  the  citi 
zen,  cannot  live  long  in  peace  with  another  community  more 
than  twice  as  numerous,  inhabiting  distinct  regions  more  or 
less  remote  from  it,  where  every  one  possessing  the  right  of 
suffrage  enjoys  political  equality  before  the  law,  and  where 
no  species  of  honest  labor  degrades  or  closes  access  to  any 
dignities  or  employments.  The  privileges  accorded  to  the 
slaveholders  were  so  many  abnormal  superfetations  on  the 
body  politic  which  had  to  be  extirpated  at  any  price,  as  nature 
herself  expels  foreign  bodies  which  chance  to  wound  or  dis 
turb  our  physical  economy.  It  was  the  manifest  duty  of  our 
republican  fathers  in  the  beginning  to  have  refused  assent 
to  this  element  of  discord.  Instead,  however,  it  was  allowed  to 
subsist;  it  was  favored  even— a  fatal  temporization  due  to 
the  invention  of  the  cotton-gin,  which  increased  the  value  of 
servile  labor  in  the  cotton-producing  States  so  rapidly  that 
the  planters  closed  their  ears  thenceforth  to  all  the  con 
siderations  previously  advanced  with  some  apparent  chance 
of  an  early  and  equitable  extinction  of  slavery. 

Thus  from  its  birth  the  young  Republic  bore  in  its  bosom 
the  germs  of  discord.  Both  political  sections  regarded  each 
other  with  mutual  jealousy  and  distrust:  the  South  lest  her 
political  influence  should  diminish  in  proportion  to  the  in 
dustry  and  constantly  increasing  power  of  the  North  and  the 
immigration  accumulating  on  her  frontiers;  the  North  lest 
there  be  an  extension  of  the  exaggerated  privileges  which  the 


330        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Constitution  had  accorded  only  to  the  original  thirteen  States. 
The  result  of  this  was  that  when  a  free  Territory  asked 
admission  as  a  State  into  the  Union,  a  corresponding  slave 
Territory  always  asked  the  same  favor.  It  was  in  this 
way  that  the  admission  of  Kentucky  was  balanced  by  the  ad 
mission  of  Vermont;  of  Tennessee  by  that  of  Ohio;  of  Loui 
siana,  Mississippi  and  Alabama  by  that  of  Indiana,  Illinois 
and  Maine.  In  1819  it  was  proposed  to  receive  the  slave 
States  Arkansas  and  Missouri  into  the  Union.  The  North 
replied  by  proposing  to  prohibit  the  introduction  of  any  more 
slaves  into  the  State  of  Missouri,  and  gradually  to  free  those 
who  then  were  there.  Such  was  the  origin  of  the  first  serious 
contest  between  the  free  and  the  slave  States.  The  contro 
versy  was  violent,  on  the  part  of  the  South  desperate,  and 
even  threatened  a  dissolution  of  the  Union.  "  Waves  of 
blood, "  they  said,  "  would  not  extinguish  the  flames  which 
have  been  lighted. "  Unhappily,  and  as  usual  in  previous 
differences  of  the  same  nature,  the  contest  ended  in  a  com 
promise,  which  was  respected  so  long  as  it  served  the  inter 
ests  of  the  slaveholders,  and  which  they  hastened  to  violate 
as  soon  as  it  did  not.  The  State  of  Missouri  was  admitted 
with  slavery,  but  on  condition  that  the  territory  lying  north 
of  her  boundary  should  remain  forever  free  from  slavery.  If 
this  difficulty  had  then  been  boldy  faced  and  combated  with 
vigor,  by  the  light  of  the  great  principles  on  which  our  Gov 
ernment  reposes ;  if  then  all  slave  property  had  been  deprived 
of  the  right  of  representation  and  had  been  put  on  the  same 
political  footing  as  all  other  property,  who  can  doubt  we 
should  have  escaped  the  horrors  of  a  fratricidal  war?  The 
cotton  crop  in  that  day  was  not  a  third  as  large  as  it  was  in 
1860,  and  the  number  of  slaves  scarcely  one-third  as  many  as 
in  1860 ;  the  doctrine  of  secession  had  not  founded  a  sect,  nor 
had  cabinet  ministers  become  its  apostles.  The  Federal  Gov 
ernment  was  still  in  the  hands  of  men  little  disposed  to  favor 
the  extension  of  slavery;  some  even,  at  the  debut  of  their 
career,  were  interested  in  projects  for  its  extinction. 

Had  the  statesmen  who  duly  appreciated  the  danger  of  in 
creasing  the  political  inequality  between  the  free  and  the  slave 
States,  by  enlarging  in  the  South  the  property  basis  of  repre 
sentation,  always  acted  in  accordance  with  their  convictions, 
the  country  would  probably  have  escaped  the  hateful  agita- 


THE   CRISIS  OF  POPULAR  SOVEREIGNTY       331 

tion  which  ever  since  has  exerted  such  a  deplorable  influence 
upon  its  dearest  interests.  A  desire  for  peace  betrayed  them 
into  culpable  concessions  resulting  in  a  social  and  political 
war  between  the  free  and  the  slave  States,  only  to  terminate 
with  the  extermination  of  the  disturbing  cause. 

The  Missouri  Compromise  left  the  slavery  question  more 
unsettled  than  before  its  adoption.  It  revealed  to  the  partisans 
of  slavery  the  power  that  slept  in  threats  of  separation,  and 
the  extent  of  the  sacrifices  to  which  the  commercial  and  in 
dustrial  interests  of  the  country  could  be  made  to  submit  to 
maintain  public  tranquillity.  Nor  did  the  Southern  statesmen 
in  succeeding  years  fail  to  profit  by  the  discovery. 

The  mass  of  the  people  in  the  free  States,  outside  the  great 
commercial  centres,  alarmed  by  the  result  of  the  Missouri 
struggle,  resumed  the  antislavery  agitation  on  economic  and 
philanthropic  grounds  with  more  bitterness  than  ever.  As  the 
struggle  waxed  in  acrimony  the  South  deemed  it  prudent  to 
prohibit  the  circulation  of  antislavery  documents  in  the  slave 
States.  The  Federal  Government  rashly  countenanced  this 
odious  policy,  and  directed  the  post-offices  of  the  slave  States 
to  be  searched,  and  all  abolition  writings  found  there  to  be 
seized  and  confiscated.  This  was  another  of  the  aggrava 
ting  indignities  resulting  from  the  deplorable  recognition  of 
slavery  as  a  national  interest,  as  a  slaveholders '  political 
asset. 

It  was  about  the  same  time  that  John  C.  Calhoun  of  South 
Carolina,  the  organizer  and,  while  he  lived,  the  recognized 
leader  of  the  pro-slavery  party,  matured  his  scheme  for  main 
taining  the  equilibrium  between  the  free  and  the  slave  States. 
Notwithstanding  the  advantage  in  political  representation 
which  the  nature  of  her  property  conferred  upon  the  South, 
the  census  of  1840  showed  that  the  relative  power  of  that  sec 
tion  was  rapidly  declining. 

Then  came  schemes,  often  renewed  and  for  the  same  polit 
ical  purpose,  to  purchase  Cuba,  or,  that  failing,  to  seize  that 
island  as  "a  political  necessity ";  filibustering  expeditions, 
winked  at  by  the  Federal  Government,  against  Central  Amer 
ica;  projects  for  reopening  the  slave  trade  with  Africa; 
riotous  efforts  to  prevent  the  people  of  the  Territory  of  Kan 
sas  from  excluding  slavery  from  her  territory  as  a  condition 
of  her  admission  as  a  State  into  the  Union;  and,  finally,  a 


334        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

It  was  too  late  in  1860  to  apply  the  remedy  which  for  many 
of  the  years  which  followed  1819  might  have  prevented  an 
appeal  to  arms;  for  the  census  of  1860  had  revealed  the 
startling  fact  that  the  slave  property  representation  would  be 
reduced  to  less  than  a  third  of  the  total  representation  in  Con 
gress—so  rapid  had  been  the  relative  increase  of  the  free 
population— and  that  the  political  equilibrium  between  the 
free  and  the  slave  States  could  no  longer  be  counted  upon.  It 
was  now  evident  that  the  supremacy  in  the  country  had  passed 
irrevocably  from  the  latter,  and  that  any  transaction  on  a  con 
stitutional  basis  with  those  who  preferred  the  institution  of 
slavery  to  the  Union  was  thenceforth  forever  impossible. 

And  here  it  may  be  well  to  make  clear  and  distinct  the 
precise  result  of  our  Civil  War  which  had  to  be  purchased  at 
such  a  fearful  price.  It  was  not  the  election  of  a  Union  Presi 
dent  ;  it  was  not  the  defeat  and  humiliation  of  the  partisans  of 
slavery;  it  was  not  the  triumph  of  the  Washington  Govern 
ment  ;  it  was  not  the  emancipation  of  four  millions  of  slaves ; 
it  was  not  the  purging  of  our  Constitution  of  a  provision  which 
created  in  the  Southern  States  a  privileged  class,  an  aristoc 
racy,  on  the  basis  of  property  in  slaves. 

All  these  things  the  Civil  War  did  accomplish,  and  their 
importance  as  means  to  the  end  is  in  no  danger  of  being  exag 
gerated  ;  but  it  was  not  for  all  or  any  of  these  that,  under  the 
guidance  of  a  Divine  Providence,  we  had  been  really  and  suc 
cessfully  fighting. 

The  paramount,  the  real  question  on  trial  in  our  Civil  War 
was  put  in  issue  the  day  our  Federal  Constitution  was  signed ; 
it  remained  the  issue  continuously  on  trial  till  settled  by  the 
war  and  the  final  surrender  of  the  Confederate  President  in 
1865.  That  question  was  whether  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  is  and  of  right  ought  to  be  a  Government  of  the 
people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people. 

From  the  commencement  of  our  constitutional  history  until 
1860  the  Government  of  our  country  had  been  in  the  hands  of 
men  who  denied  and  defied  each  one  of  those  propositions. 
Happily,  thanks  to  the  same  Divine  Providence,  forty-four 
years  of  peace  have*  already  demonstrated  to  the  combatants  on 
both  sides  that  the  Civil  War  was  worth  all  and  far  more  than 
its  cost,  not  only  to  the  combatants  on  both  sides  as  a  vindica 
tion  of  the  great  principle  under  the  inspiration  of  which  our 


THE  CRISIS  OF  POPULAR  SOVEREIGNTY       335 

nation  asserted  its  independence  in  1776,  but  as  an  example  to 
other  governments  still  struggling  under  the  mediaeval  yoke  of 
dynasticism. 

Before  the  adoption  of  the  Secession  Ordinance  by  South 
Carolina  at  Charleston  on  the  20th  of  December,  1860,  Floyd, 
Cobb  and  Thompson,  three  members  of  Mr.  Buchanan's  Cabi 
net  and  in  full  complicity  with  the  conspirators  for  secession, 
had  practically  disarmed  the  Government,  had  exhausted  the 
treasury,  and  to  a  great  extent  had  transmitted  to  the  South 
most  of  its  means  of  defence  and  protection. 

In  this  class  Floyd's  conduct  was  perhaps  the  most  shame 
less.  He  sold  to  the  Virginia  Board  of  Army  Commissioners 
five  thousand  muskets,  delivered  ten  thousand  more  from  the 
Watervliet  Arsenal,  on  the  waters  of  the  upper  Hudson  Eiver, 
to  an  agent  of  South  Carolina,  and  five  thousand  others  from 
the  Baton  Eouge  Arsenal  to  the  Governor  of  Alabama.  He 
ordered  advance  quotas  of  arms  to  a  number  of  Southern 
States  and  sent  a  government  officer  to  inspect  a  purchase  of 
arms  for  the  Governor  of  Mississippi.  He  allowed  Virginia 
to  have  a  model  musket  made  at  the  Springfield  Armory;  to 
use  and  take  copies  of  government  patterns,  drawings,  ma 
chines,  tools,  etc.,  at  Springfield  and  Harper's  Ferry;  and 
arranged  for  the  Washington  Navy  Yard  to  manufacture  a 
battery  of  howitzers  and  a  lot  of  fuses  for  the  same  State.  He 
sent  Colonel  Hardee  to  drill  the  camp  of  instruction  for  Gov 
ernor  Letcher  of  Virginia,  and  a  little  later  gave  him  leave  of 
absence  practically  to  go  into  the  service  of  the  Eebellion 
under  Hie  State  of  Georgia.  He  acquiesced  in  the  acceptance 
of  a  militia  volunteer  guard  to  surround  and  ostensibly  to 
protect  the  Charleston  Arsenal,  which  guard  soon  seized  and 
held  it  for  South  Carolina.  On  the  very  day  of  the  Charleston 
Secession  Ordinance,  without  the  knowledge  of  the  President, 
he  ordered  the  transfer  from  the  Pittsburgh  Arsenal  to  the 
Southern  coast,  where  they  might  be  readily  seized,  of  one 
hundred  and  twenty-three  cannon,  on  the  pretext  of  arming 
the  fort  at  Ship  Island,  not  yet  completed,  and  the  fort  at 
Galveston,  not  yet  begun. 

Th.e  President  was  old,  timid,  and  under  duress  in  the  toils 
of  these  wily  conspirators  who  were  playing  ducks  and  drakes 
with  the  resourees  of  the  nation  without  his  knowledge,  and, 


336        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

when  known,  without  the  courage  to  resist.  Such  were  some 
of  the  preparations  made  by  President  Buchanan's  Cabinet 
for  the  rupture  of  the  union  between  the  free  and  the  slave 
States  and  for  the  organization  of  a  new  and  independent  gov 
ernment  of  which  slavery  was  to  be  the  corner-stone.  South 
Carolina  seceded  December  20,  1860;  Mississippi,  January  9, 
1861;  Florida,  January  10;  Alabama,  January  11;  Georgia, 
January  19 ;  Louisiana,  January  26 ;  and  Texas,  February  1. 

The  secession  of  the  latter  State  was  followed  in  a  few  days, 
through  the  treasonable  connivance  of  General  Twiggs,  who 
commanded  the  Federal  troops  in  Texas,  by  the  surrender  of 
the  military  post  and  property  under  his  command  to  an  im 
promptu  collection  of  about  one  thousand  rebels  in  arms,  pur 
porting  to  act  by  authority  of  the  convention  which  had  issued 
the  Ordinance  of  Secession. 

These  facts  will  give  some  idea  of  the  condition  in  which  Presi 
dent  Lincoln  found  the  country  after  his  inauguration, but  which 
was  known  to  but  comparatively  few  until  after  that  event. 

It  may  be  convenient  for  the  reader  to  find  here  a  list  of  all 
the  members  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  Cabinet  during  both  his  first 
and  second  Administrations,  the  twenty-first  and  twenty-sec 
ond  Administrations  of  the  Government. 


TWENTY-FIRST  ADMINISTRATION 

Secretary  of  State  : 

William  H.  Seward,  New  York,  March  5,  1861,  succeeding  Jere 
miah  S.  Black  of  Pennsylvania. 

Secretary  of  the  Treasury: 

Salmon  P.  Chase,  Ohio,  March  5,  1861,  succeeding  John  A.  Dix 

of  New  York. 

David  Tod,  Ohio,  June  30,  1864,  declined. 
William  P.  Fessenden,  Maine,  July  1,  1864. 
Edwin  D.  Morgan,  New  York,  February  13,  1865,  declined. 

Secretary  of  War: 

Simon  Cameron,  Pennsylvania,  March  5,  1861,  succeeding  Joseph 

Holt  of  Kentucky. 
Edwin  M.  Stanton,  Ohio,  January  15,  1862. 

Secretary  of  the  Navy : 

Gideon  Welles,   Connecticut,  March  5,   1861,   succeeding  Isaac 
Toucey  of  Connecticut. 


THE  CRISIS  OF  POPULAR  SOVEREIGNTY       337 

Secretary  of  the  Interior: 

Caleb  B.  Smith,  Indiana,  March  5,  1861,  succeeding  Moses  Kelly 

£ad  interim) . 

John  P.  Usher,  Indiana  (ad  interim),  January  1,  1863. 
John  P.  Usher,  Indiana,  January  8,  1863. 

Attorney-General  : 

Edwin  M.  Stanton,  Ohio,  reappointed. 

Edward  Bates,  Missouri,  March  5,  1861. 

Joseph  Holt,  Kentucky,  December  1,  1864,  declined. 

James  Speed,  Kentucky,  December  2,  1864. 

Postmtaster-General : 

Montgomery  Blair,  Maryland,  March  5,  1861,  succeeding  Horatio 

King  of  Maine. 
William  Dennison,  Ohio,  September  4,  1864. 


TWENTY-SECOND  ADMINISTRATION 

Secretary  of  State: 

William  H.  Seward,  New  York,  reappointed. 

Secretary  of  the  Treasury: 

George  Harrington  (ad  interim),  March  4,  1865. 
Hugh  McCulloch,  Indiana,  March  7, 1865. 

Secretary  of  War: 

Edwin  M.  Stanton,  Ohio,  reappointed. 

Secretary  of  the  Navy: 

Gideon  Welles,  Connecticut,  reappointed. 

Secretary  of  the  Interior: 

John  P.  Usher,  Indiana,  reappointed. 

James  Harlan,  Iowa,  succeeding  John  P.  Usher. 

Attorney-General : 

James  Speed,  Kentucky,  reappointed. 

Postmaster-General : 

William  Dennison,  Ohio,  reappointed. 


Mr.  Lincoln's  first  Cabinet,  purged  by  the  resignation  of 
the  pro-slavery  members  of  President  Buchanan's  Admin 
istration,  had  the  appearance  of  being  selected  from  a  grab- 
bag.  Not  one  of  them  was  a  personal  or  much  of  a  political 


338        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

friend  of  Mr.  Lincoln ;  not  one  of  them  had  ever  had  any  ex 
perience  or  training  in  any  executive  office,  except  Welles  of 
Connecticut,  if  he  could  be  claimed  as  an  exception  because  of 
having  served  three  years  in  a  bureau  of  the  navy  in  Washing 
ton.  Of  military  administration,  still  less  of  actual  war,  no 
member  knew  anything  by  experience.  Each  had  been  more  or 
less  of  a  local  political  leader  at  home,  but  every  one  had  a  more 
or  less  strenuous  political  adversary  in  several  of  his  asso 
ciates.  The  heads  of  the  two  most  important  departments, 
the  Secretaries  of  State  and  the  Treasury,  were  both  dis 
appointed  candidates  for  the  chair  occupied  by  Mr.  Lincoln. 
It  was  nothing  less  than  providential  that  the  President  was 
so  happily  constituted  as  neither  to  share  nor  to  provoke  any 
of  the  jealousies  or  envies  of  either  of  them  any  longer,  and, 
by  his  absolute  freedom  from  every  selfish  impulse,  gradually 
compelled  them  all  finally  to  look  up  to  him  as  the  one  person 
in  whose  singleness  of  eye  only  they  could  all  and  always 
confide.  Not  immediately,  but  in  the  course  of  two  or  three 
years,  they  got  into  the  habit  of  turning  to  him  like  quarrel 
ling  children  to  their  mother  to  settle  all  the  questions  which 
temporarily  divided  them. 

On  the  21st  of  January,  1861, 1  met  the  venerable  Professor 
Weir,  of  the  West  Point  Military  Academy,  in  the  cars  on  our 
way  to  New  York,  when  he  told  me  that  Colonel  Hardee,  then 
the  commandant  of  cadets  at  the  Academy,  was  buying  arms 
for  his  native  State  of  Georgia,  and  that  the  Kembles,  whose 
iron-works  were  across  the  river  from  West  Point  at  Cold 
Spring,  were  filling  a  large  order  for  him.  He  also  said  that 
Senator  Jefferson  Davis,  who  had  resigned  his  seat  in  the 
Senate  only  the  day  before,  had  been  for  two  years  trying 
to  demoralize  and  break  down  the  Academy  at  West  Point, 
and,  failing  in  that,  he  had  caused  himself  to  be  selected  as  one 
of  the  visitors  the  previous  summer  in  order  to  utilize  the  op 
portunity  to  unsettle  the  loyalty  of  as  many  of  the  pupils  and 
officers  there  as  he  thought  could  be  available  for  the  impend 
ing  emergencies. 

This  story  recalls  the  fact  that,  while  Davis  was  serving 
as  a  visitor  to  the  Academy  the  previous  June,  he  came  down 
with  Hardee  and  spent  the  afternoon  with  us  at  The  Squirrels. 
It  was  during  the  two  or  three  weeks  that  he  then  spent  at  the 


THE  CRISIS  OF  POPULAR  SOVEREIGNTY       339 

Academy  that  he  effected  the  corruption  of  Hardee,  who  could 
not  resist  the  temptation  of  wearing  the  chevrons  of  a  major- 
general,  though  regretting,  I  know  from  personal  conversation 
with  him  afterwards,  that  he  had  to  secure  them  at  the  cost 
of  living  the  rest  of  his  days  and  dying  a  traitor. 

A  combination,  engineered  mostly  hy  friends  of  Governor 
Chase  of  Ohio,  to  exclude  Mr.  Seward  from  the  Cabinet  of 
Mr.  Lincoln  developed  so  much  force  that  I  was  urged  to  pub 
lish  a  letter  in  the  Senator's  behalf.  A  few  weeks  later,  meet 
ing  Mr.  Weed  casually  in  the  cars,  he  told  me  that  when  the 
fight  against  Seward  for  the  Cabinet  was  raging,  Seward 
handed  the  President-elect  a  letter  withdrawing  his  acceptance 
of  the  office  of  Secretary  of  State  to  which  the  President-elect 
had  invited  him.  Mr.  Lincoln  asked  him  for  a  few  days  that 
he  might  consider  what  he  could,  should  and  would  do  in  the 
premises,  and  asked  in  the  meantime  that  Mr.  Seward  would 
let  what  had  passed  be  confidential.  Finally,  and  on  the  day 
preceding  his  inauguration,  Mr.  Lincoln  sent  for  Mr.  Seward 
and  told  him  that  he  could  not  get  on  without  his  help,  and 
begged  him  therefore  to  retain  the  place  or,  to  use  his  own 
language,  to  "hold  on."  Mr.  Seward  asked  until  the  follow 
ing  day  for  reflection,  when  he  accepted,  and  the  President 
then  and  there  gave  Mr.  Seward  to  understand  that,  what 
ever  others  might  say  or  do,  and  wherever  they  might  say  or 
do  it,  he  and  Mr.  Seward  would  not  disagree,  but  were  friends. 

Weed  also  stated  that  the  Cabinet  had  just  sent  Colonel 
Landor  down  to  Texas  with  letters  from  Mr.  Hamilton,  a 
member  of  Congress  from  Texas  and  a  Union  man,  to  say  to 
General  Houston  that  if  he  was  disposed  to  fight  for  the  pres 
ervation  of  the  Union,  the  Federal  Government  would  supply 
him  with  money  and  men.  It  afterwards  appeared  that  the 
general,  who  at  the  time  was  Governor  of  the  State,  either  had 
lost  confidence  in  himself,  or  was  unwilling  to  compromise  a 
scheme  for  Texan  independence  which  he  had  been  entertain 
ing  ;  he  declined  the  proffer  of  assistance  and  protested  against 
the  concentration  of  troops  or  the  erection  of  fortifications  in 
Texas.  This  refusal  was  the  end  of  Houston's  career.  He 
was  nearly  seventy  years  old,  and  no  longer  able  to  lead  and 
direct  as  in  the  days  when  he  first  fought  the  battles  of  Texan 
independence. 


340        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

The  creation  and  development  of  Central  Park  had  been  for 
many  years  one  of  the  special  concerns  of  the  Evening  Post. 
This  park  had  to  start  from  small  beginnings,  and  of  course 
to  worry  through  some  years  without  any  of  the  prestige  of 
success.  It  was  managed  mainly  by  a  board  of  merchants  and 
business  men  who  gave  very  little  time  to  its  affairs  and 
rather  begrudged  what  they  did  give.  They  were  wise  or 
fortunate  enough,  however,  to  have  employed  the  late  Fred 
erick  Law  Olmsted  as  their  adviser  in  laying  out  and  super 
vising  the  improvements  of  the  park.  He  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  pouring  into  my  ears  accounts  of  want  of  harmony 
and  of  apparent  indifference  to  the  duties  with  which  the  park 
commissioners  had  allowed  themselves  to  be  charged,  and  I 
had  from  time  to  time  given  him  such  aid  as  was  in  my  power. 

In  the  latter  part  of  January,  1861,  he  rather  alarmed  me 
by  reporting  a  situation  in  the  board  which  seemed  to  threaten 
the  city  with  his  withdrawal  from  that  service.  I  felt  that 
was  a  result  to  be  prevented  at  all  hazards,  and  I  advised  him 
to  the  best  of  my  ability.  The  letter  which  follows  was  one 
of  the  results  of  that  advice.  I  place  it  here  because  it  shows 
for  the  first  time,  I  believe,  the  perilous  straits  and  risks 
through  which  the  first  considerable  municipal  park  in  this 
country  had  to  pass  in  coming  to  its  birth. 

Mr.  Olmsted  was  devoted  to  his  profession  and  not  in  the 
least  a  politician,  and  when  he  wrote  this  letter  he  had  reached 
a  point  where  he  found  himself  so  helpless  that  he  was  quite 
ready  to  give  the  work  up  in  despair.  Had  not  some  changes 
been  made  in  the  personnel  of  the  board  soon  after  this  let 
ter  was  written,  he  probably  would  have  abandoned  it.  He 
finally  did  leave  it  all  too  soon. 


FREDERICK  LAW  OLMSTED  TO  BIGELOW 

CENTRAL  PARK,  Feby.  9th/61. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

It  's  a  rather  ungrateful  task  you  propose  to  me,  but  as  I 
am  sure  you  must  have  a  good  reason  for  your  request  and  as 
I  happen  to  feel  myself  more  at  liberty  to  speak  my  mind 


OLMSTED  AND  CENTRAL  PARK  COMMISSION    341 

freely  about  the  Commissioners  than  I  have  before  for  three 
years,  I  shall  answer  you  with  entire  frankness. 

The  reports  to  which  you  allude  are  not  unfounded.  The 
Commission  has  in  it  so  many  cross-sticks  that  from  the  start 
very  little  business  has  been  done  directly  and  with  a  clear 
understanding  and  conviction  of  the  rightfulness  of  its  true 
bearing  in  the  minds  of  a  majority— almost  none  indeed.  In 
the  first  place,  I  got  three  thousand  men  at  work  before  half 
of  them  really  understood  that  I  had  the  authority  for  it. 
No  one  would  take  the  responsibility  of  urging  their  discharge, 
and  before  winter  we  had  got  such  a  start  that  in  the  spring 
following,  the  park  became  a  popular  enjoyment,  and  the  pub 
lic  demand  to  go  ahead  with  the  work  carried  the  Commission 
in  some  way  along  with  it.  Still  the  real  business  of  the  Board 
was  done  and  has  always  been  done  indirectly,  under  some 
questionable,  discretionary  authority.  There  is  not  a  man  of 
leisure  in  the  Commission,  and  but  one  man  is  paid  for  his 
services  in  it,  that  is,  Green.  No  one  but  Green  knows  or  will 
take  the  trouble  to  inform  himself  of  the  facts  bearing  on  any 
question  of  policy  sufficiently  to  argue  upon  it  effectually. 
Thus  Green  has  it  always  all  his  own  way  in  any  debate,  and 
the  rather  as  his  own  way  is  generally  the  most  cautious,  the 
safest  way,  the  way  least  open  to  superficial  objection.  Grad 
ually  this  third  year,  the  result  has  come  to  be  that  actually 
nothing  is  done  in  the  Board  unless  Green  has  prepared  it. 
Nothing  is  carried  that  Green  does  not  approve.  Nine  tenths 
of  all  the  business  of  the  Board  has  recently  been  done  by 
reference  with  power  to  a  committee,  and  by  reference  of  the 
Committee  with  power  to  Green.  And  no  duty  on  my  part,  no 
appropriation  for  supplies  or  labor  has  been  authorized  with 
out  a  clause  "with  the  approval  of  the  Comptroller "  or  of  a 
Committee  which  practically  re-delegates  the  trust  to  Green. 
Eeally  at  last,  I  have  found  that  I  could  not  act  in  the  small 
est  detail,  absolutely  and  literally,  could  not  direct  a  matter 
involving  an  expenditure  of  12%  cts.  without  I  took  the  trouble 
to  see  Mr.  Green  personally  and  perfectly  satisfy  him  that  the 
said  expenditure  was  unavoidable.  The  practical  effect  is 
that  my  hands  are  often  tied  just  where  it  is  of  the  highest 
importance  that  I  should  act  with  an  artist's  freedom  and 
spirit,  namely,  in  the  last  touches,  the  finish  of  my  work. 
Finally  I  found  that  my  character  &  standing  not  only  as  an 


342        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

artist  and  a  manager  of  works,  but  as  a  man  of  honesty  & 
honor,  was  at  stake.  It  is  unnecessary  that  I  should  explain 
now.  Of  course  I  tendered  my  resignation.  The  President 
refused  to  present  it  to  the  Board,  but  called  in  an  informal 
meeting  of  a  majority,  including  Green,  and  I  showed  them  in 
how  very  wrong  a  position  they  had  allowed  me  to  be  placed. 
They  all,  including  Green,  acknowledged  the  justness  of  my 
statement  of  personal  wrong,  and  promised  to  remedy  it  as 
soon  as  possible.  A  majority  of  the  Executive  Committee 
being  present,  in  fact,  at  once  authorized  my  most  essential 
demand,  and  I  am  only  waiting  to  secure  some  record  of  the 
general  acknowledgment,  from  the  President,  to  withdraw 
my  resignation. 

Now  as  to  the  Commissioners :  to  do  justice  to  Green,  he  is 
fully  entitled,  not  only  to  all  the  emoluments,  but  to  nearly  all 
the  credit,  which  attaches  to  the  Commission.  As  Treasurer, 
not  a  dollar,  not  a  cent  is  got  from  under  his  paw  that  it  is 
not  wet  with  his  blood  &  sweat.  His  tenacity  in  holding  to  it 
operates  hardly  on  some  poor  fellows  who  earn  the  amount 
of  their  small  bills  ten  times  over  in  the  labor  necessary  to 
overcome  his  constitutional  reluctance  to  pay  where  it  is  pos 
sible  to  avoid  or  postpone  or  neglect  payment.  His  inten 
tions  are  good,  and  spite  of  his  strong  natural  proclivities, 
he  is  honest  and  sensible  in  the  main.  He  does,  and  always  has 
done,  a  hundred  times  more  work  than  all  the  rest  together. 

Eussell,  as  Chairman  of  the  Finance  Committee,  works  well 
with  Green  and  has  been  very  useful— has  done  more  for  the 
park  than  anyone  else,  although  during  all  the  important 
part  of  the  year  he  is  at  Newport.  Gray  has  at  times  worked 
hard  and  effectually  to  carry  important  points  for  the  park, 
both  in  &  out  of  the  Board.  He  is  much  interested  &  moves 
always  impetuously,  often  erratically  and  inconsiderately. 
Grinnell  is  excellent,  what  we  have  of  him.  He  rarely  stays 
out  a  meeting  &  never  sees  the  park.  Hutchins  does  not  attend 
one  meeting  in  fifty.  Few  people  in  New  York  know  so  little  of 
the  park.  Blatchf ord  is  a  capital  presiding  officer,  dispatches 
routine  business  rapidly  and  well.  He  is  nothing— or  does 
nothing— out  of  his  seat.  Butterworth  is  fearfully  crotchety 
and  has  done  more  harm  than  good  in  the  Board.  Belmont  & 
Fields  have  both  been  doing  all  the  harm  they  could  from  the 
adoption  of  the  plan.  They  have  thrown  every  possible  ob- 


A.D.  1821 


A.D.  1907 


Sir  William  H.  Russell 
'Our  Own  Correspondent"  of  the  London  Times 


OLMSTED  AND  CENTRAL  PARK  COMMISSION    343 

struction  in  the  way  of  business,  and  this  with  direct  and 
avowed  intention.  Of  the  two,  Fields  has  the  most  generous 
and  manly  impulses  and  is  the  least  malicious.  Belmont  has 
been  an  unmitigated  nuisance  as  regards  the  business  of  the 
Board.  Stebbins  is  the  only  man  of  strong  good  taste  in  the 
Commission.  He  is  valuable  on  that  account,  but  is  too  busy 
with  other  matters  and  can't  be  depended  on.  Strong  has  left 
his  resignation,  I  believe.  He  has  been  a  useful  Comr.  in  spite 
of  his  froth. 

I  think  there  have  been  some  advantages  attending  the  num 
ber  of  the  Commission,  but  it  is  now  unquestionably  desirable 
that  it  should  be  reduced.  I  wish  it  could  be  made  three  in 
stead  of  six.  Either  of  the  Democrats  after  Green  &  Stebbins 
will  be  sure  to  weaken  it,  and  none  of  the  Eepublicans  will  do 
anything  except  Blatchford  &  Eussell.  I  doubt  if  Grinnell  has 
been  in  the  park  but  once  since  his  appointment,  and  when  in 
the  Board  room  he  scarce  takes  his  eyes  off  the  clock.  He 
has  a  capital  business  instinct  though  &  never  delays  anything. 
With  the  "Charity"  business  &  the  Insurance  business  &  a 
yacht  &  a  home  in  the  country,  it  's  perhaps  a  wonder  that  he 
ever  gives  a  thought  to  the  park.  But  it  's  much  the  same  with 
all  the  rest.  Except  Green,  who  dines  with  me  about  every 
other  Sunday,  I  don't  see  a  Commissioner  on  the  park  on  an 
average  once  in  two  months.  If  you  ask  how  it  happens  that 
they  have,  on  the  whole,  been  so  successful  in  their  administra 
tion  of  the  park-affairs,  unquestionably  the  answer  is,  that 
that  is  the  best  government  which  governs  the  least.  It  is 
evident,  however,  that  as  the  park  approaches  &  takes  on  in 
points  its  finished  condition,  and  as  it  comes  more  into  use, 
that  a  little  more  personal  knowledge  of  how  it  is  used,  and  a 
little  more  sympathy  with  the  daily  wants  of  those  who  use  it, 
is  very  much  wanted  in  the  Board.  We  have  recently  had,  day 
after  day,  from  75,000  to  100,000  people  in  the  park  daily.  Not 
one  of  the  Commissioners  is  able  to  testify  from  personal  ob 
servation  of  the  wants  of,  or  of  the  restraints  required  by,  this 
multitude.  Of  the  intense  anxiety  with  which  I  sometimes 
watch  the  movements  of  this  throng,  no  one  in  the  Board  has  the 
most  remote  perception.  The  chief  good  which  I  hope  to  see 
result  from  the  reduction  is  an  increased  individual  responsi 
bility  &  consequent  interest  &  knowledge  of  the  wants  of  the. 
public  in  the  park,  among  the  Commissioners. 


344        KETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Glancing  back  at  what  I  have  written,  some  of  it  appears, 
I  'm  afraid,  rather  flippant  than  frank.  If  so,  it  is  because  I 
know  that  I  can  trust  to  your  personal  knowledge  to  supply 
what  is  lacking  to  complete  truth. 

Yours  very  faithfully 


Mr.  William  H.  Eussell  accompanied  the  staff  of  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  as  "Our  Own  Correspondent "  of  the 
London  Times.  'It  was  to  his  presence  at  the  first  battle  of 
Bull  Eun  that  he  was  indebted  for  the  name  by  which  he  still  is 
most  readily  identified  in  the  United  States,  a  title  which  he 
incurred  by  giving  his  paper  a  highly  realistic  description  of 
the  occurrences  of  that  day,  including  his  personal  adventures 
in  returning  to  his  base,  which  then  was  Washington  City. 
Eussell  had  to  expiate  the  unfriendly  tone  of  the  print  he  rep 
resented,  which  made  no  disguise  of  its  cordial  sympathy  with 
the  insurgents  in  so  far  as  they  were  supposed  to  be  laboring 
for  the  dismemberment  of  our  Eepublic. 

It  was  my  good  fortune  to  make  this  gentleman's  acquain 
tance  in  the  summer  of  1859,  on  our  way  to  Thun  in  Switzer 
land,  as  I  have  already  related.  He  was  then  famous  as  * '  Our 
Own  Correspondent "  of  the  London  Times  during  the 
Crimean  War.  Less  than  two  years  from  that  time  we  met 
again  in  New  York,  whither  he  had  been  sent  by  the  Times 
under  circumstances  thus  described  by  himself:1 

Early  in  February,  1861,  I  was  asked  by  Mr.  Delane,  the  editor  of 
the  Times,  if  I  could  make  arrangements  to  proceed  immediately  to 
the  United  States  to  act  as  the  special  correspondent  of  that  paper  in 
observing  the  rupture  between  the  Southern  States  and  the  rest  of  the 
Union,  consequent  upon  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  advent  of 
the  Eepublicans  to  power.  The  letters  of  Mr.  Bancroft  Davis,  the 
Times'  correspondent  at  New  York,  were  not  in  accord  with  the  views 
of  Printing  House  Square.  He  was  an  uncompromising  Abolitionist ; 
his  correspondence  was  in  direct  antagonism  to  the  Times'  leaders. 
"The  South/'  wrote  Mr.  Delane,  "threatens  to  secede,  but  that  has 
been  held  up  as  a  menace  for  a  long  time,  and  the  quarrel  will  be 

"Recollections  of  the  Civil  War,  by  Sir  William  Howard  Eussell,  LL.D., 
North  American  Review  for  February,  1898. 


W.  H.  RUSSELL  AND  THE  LONDON  TIMES        345 

patched  up ;  for  the  North  cannot  live  without  the  South,  and  lives,  in 
deed,  a  good  deal  on  and  by  it,"  and  so  on  for  four  closely  written 
pages  of  note-paper.  I  had  many  reasons  for  declining  the  mission. 
My  wife  was  in  delicate  health,  my  children  were  growing  up,  and 
since  1854  I  had  been  constantly  in  exile  in  the  Crimea,  Russia,  India, 
and  Italy.  My  life  was  at  that  time  very  pleasant.  The  Garrick 
Club  then  afforded  the  most  agreeable  society  I  could  wish,  for 
Thackeray,  Dickens,  Shirley  Brooks,  Millais,  Trollope,  Reade,  and 
other  delightful  people  less  known  to  fame,  as  well  as  many  of  the 
soldiers  I  had  met  in  the  Crimea  and  India,  were  familiar  friends 
there.  But  I  was  urged  by  the  editor,  to  whom  I  was  bound  by  a  hun 
dred  good  offices,  to  make  a  sacrifice  and  to  put  on  harness  once  more 
for  his  sake.  I  felt  I  had  few  qualifications  for  the  post.  I  was  almost 
entirely  ignorant  of  the  nature  of  the  crisis  and  of  the  issues  at  stake, 
though  I  had  read  " Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  had  attended  abolition  meet 
ings  at  Stafford  House,  and  read  extracts  from  fiery  speeches  of  Cal- 
houn  and  other  Southern  orators  in  the  London  papers.  I  had  a  vague 
idea  that  the  Southern  States  insisted  on  their  right  to  break  away 
from  the  Federal  Union  and  set  up  on  their  own  account  if  they  liked, 
and  that  was  all  I  knew.  Mr.  John  Henry  Dillon,  an  acquaintance  of 
Mr.  Mowbray  Morris,  the  manager  of  the  Times,  and  of  Mr.  Delane,  to 
whom  I  was  referred  for  further  information,  was  an  ardent  partisan 
of  the  South.  Mr.  Dillon  astounded  me  by  arguments  to  prove  that 
the  authors  of  the  Union  had  provided  for  its  disintegration  by  the 
machinery  of  States'  Rights;  and,  finally,  he  confided  to  me,  as  a 
precious  arsenal  containing  arms  for  the  destruction  of  Abolitionists 
and  Republicans,  an  immense  volume  of  articles,  neatly  pasted  in 
order,  from  the  New  York  Herald. 

On  Sunday,  the  3d  of  March,  I  embarked  at  Queenstown  in  the 
Cunard  steamer  Arabia.  .  .  . 

On  the  evening  of  March  16,  after  a  stormy  passage,  the  Arabia 
arrived  in  New  York,  and  I  was  installed  that  night  in  the  Clarendon 
Hotel  under  the  wing  of  my  old  friend  Colonel  Rowan,  R.A. 


Being  the  representative  of  an  institution  which  exercised 
at  that  time  more  power  over  the  public  opinion  and  the  Gov 
ernment  of  England  than  all  the  other  journals  of  the  world 
combined,  Sir  William's  letters  written  during  his  brief  stay 
among  us— a  brevity  for  which  he  was  indebted  chiefly  to  Mr. 
Lincoln's  Secretary  of  War— will  be  found  to  possess  an  in- 


346        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

terest  now  far  exceeding  that  which  they  inspired  when  writ 
ten,  clever  and  agreeable  as,  of  course,  they  always  were. 

In  a  letter  received  from  him  about  a  month  previous  to 
his  mission  to  the  United  States  he  gave  me  what  I  regard  as 
representing  pretty  fairly  the  attitude  of  his  mind  toward 
the  struggle  just  begun  in  America  when  he  reached  our 
shores. 


WILLIAM  II.  EUSSELL  TO  BIGELOW 

CRYSTAL  PALACE  HOTEL,  SYDENHAM,  W. 

LONDON,  Feby.  4,  1861. 
My  dear  Bigelow : 

My  wife  is  still  a  very  great  invalid,  but  thank  God  I  can 
hope  now— some  weeks  back  I  dared  not.  And  now  let  me 
congratulate  you  on  the  news  you  tell  me  in  your  very  wel 
come  letter.  You  retire  from  the  laborious  part  of  life  just 
as  I  may  be  said  to  be  about  to  face  it,  and  if  there  be  any 
I  could  envy  it  would  surely  be  one  who  in  the  vigor  of  his 
intellect,  with  every  bodily  and  mental  power  at  its  best,  with 
all  that  charms  at  home  and  makes  a  fireside  happy,  sits  down 
calmly  and  joyously  to  direct  himself  to  the  cultivation  of  the 
finest  parts  of  literature  in  the  full  confidence  that  when  he 
has  fulfilled  his  allotted  task  he  may  say  too  " exegi  monu- 
mentum"  and  be  assured  it  will  endure. 

I  can  easily  fancy  that  there  is  one  bitter  drop  in  the  cup, 
which  has  been  distilled  out  of  the  present  sad  conjunction  of 
affairs  in  the  United  States;  for  no  patriotic  heart  can  be 
indifferent  to  such  a  lamentabla  exhibition  of  blind  fury  and 
suicidal  madness.  Every  friend  of  despotism  rejoices  at  your 
misfortune;  it  points  the  moral  and  adorns  the  tale  in  every 
aristocratic  salon;  it  is  the  shame  of  them  who  have  per 
haps  over  zealously  advocated  the  absolute  perfection  of  the 
great  Eepublic;  it  is  assuredly  a  grave  and  serious  obstacle 
to  the  march  of  constitutional  liberty.  Our  people  in  Europe 
are  so  violent  that  the  spectacle  does  not  attract  all  the  atten 
tion  which  should  be  paid  to  the  most  important  social  & 
political  phenomenon  of  the  later  ages  of  the  world,  the  result 
of  which  will  be  felt  for  good  or  evil  to  the  end  of  time.  But 
no  good  Englishman  feels  any  sentiment  but  one  of  intense 


W.  H.  RUSSELL  AND  THE  LONDON  TIMES        347 

respect  and  great  sympathy.  Give  my  kindest  regards  to  Mrs. 
Bigelow,  remember  me  to  the  children,  and  write  often  to, 
yours,  dear  Bigelow, 

Always  very  faithfully  &  sincerely 


WILLIAM  H.  RUSSELL  TO  BIGELOW 

WILLAKD  MENAGEBIE, 
Den  55, 

WASHINGTON  [circa  April  14,  1861]. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

I  have  been  in  great  expectation  of  hearing  from  you,  but 
you  can  appreciate  how  far  it  has  been  well  grounded.  On 
Wednesday  I  leave  this  Kingdom  of  Lincoln  and  travel  into 
that  of  King  Jefferson  Davis  armed  with  a  passport  and  a 
mens  conscia  recti — the  latter  may  be  useful  in  the  region  indi 
cated  even  if  I  am  unable  to  part  with  it. 

I  fear,  my  friend,  you  are  going  to  immortal  smash.  That 
little  lump  of  revolutionary  leaven  has  at  last  set  to  work 
in  good  earnest  and  the  whole  mass  of  social  and  political  life 
is  fermenting  unhealthily.  Of  course  you  all  try  to  disguise 
your  trouble  and  your  danger  by  talking  of  the  lesson  to  the 
world,  moral  force,  no  blood-shed  etc.  etc.  But  the  world  will 
only  see  in  it  all,  the  failure  of  republican  institutions  in  time 
of  pressure  as  demonstrated  by  all  history— that  history  which 
America  vainly  thought  she  was  going  to  set  right  and  re-es 
tablish  on  new  grounds  and  principles.  I  fail  to  discover 
among  the  men  I  have  come  in  contact  with  any  "veneration" 
for  anything— it  's  a  useful  bump— good  government  grows 
under  it.  I  have  seen  a  good  deal  of  Seward ;  he  rather  affects 
the  vieux  diplomat  tone  and  is  fond  of  talking  of  "Lords" 
etc.,  of  his  acquaintance  in  England.  He  is  not  at  all  com 
municative.  Story,  God  bless  you,  I  have  none  to  tell,  Sir. 
Chase  seems  to  me  a  strange  man.  Mr.  Lincoln  looks  honest 
and  intelligent.  Of  all  the  men  I  have  met  Douglas  appears 
to  me  to  be  the  nearest  to  a  statesman.  On  the  other  hand, 
Roman  is  a  capital  old  Lord  Chamberlain;  Crawford  is  but 


348        EETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

as  Rupert,  and  Forsyth1  well  balanced  and  deep  as  a  well. 
They  are  much  more  disposed  to  tell  me  in  confidence  what  will 
not  come  back  here  for  a  month  than  Seward  to  whom  I  put 
the  case  and  who  with  abundant  civility  evaded  it.  Now  I  am 
perfectly  satisfied  that  on  no  question  can  England  exercise  a 
greater  influence  than  the  present,  and  I  am  sure  no  power  is 
so  potent  in  producing  that  effect  on  public  opinion  which 
must  determine  the  course  of  England  as  my  own  popular 
little  periodical.  I  think  all  the  preparations  which  are  going 
on— small  they  are  indeed— mean  the  security  of  Tortugas  and 
Key  West.  They  are  most  important  strategic  positions 
whether  it  be  peace  or  war  and  a  concentration  of  troops  there 
must  prove  an  endless  source  of  very  great  embarrassment 
and  trouble  to  the  Government  of  the  South  and  in  the  end 
force  them  to  make  war  or  sue  for  a  compromise.  If  a  part 
of  their  troops  be  destined  for  war  it  means  that  the  Govt. 
has  a  good  understanding  with  Mexico,  and  with  Mr.  Hous 
ton.  I  heard  from  my  wife  by  this  mail.  She  is  still  very 
weak  and  nervous,  and  I  think  if  I  stay  long  here  I  must 
bring  her  over.  Where  is  Mrs.  Bigelow!  Give  her  my  kind 
est  regards,  and  tell  her  that  I  passed  through  Baltimore 
at  night.  .  .  . 
I  am  ever,  my  dear  Bigelow,  with  sincere  regard 


The  Mr.  Henderson  referred  to  in  the  following  note  was 
a  member  of  the  firm  of  Bryant  &  Co.  and  its  business  mana 
ger.  He  had  solicited  my  aid  to  procure  him  the  appointment 
of  Navy  Agent  in  the  city  of  New  York. 


SALMON  P.  CHASE,  SECEETAEY  OF  THE  TEEASUEY,  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  March  11,  '61. 
My  dear  Sir: 

I  sincerely  desire  that  your  wishes  in  respect  to  Mr.  Hen 
derson  may  be  gratified  unless  Mr.  Bryant  presents  some 

1  Andrew  B.  Roman,  John  Forsyth  and  Martin  Crawford  were  the  represen 
tatives  of  the  provisional  Confederate  Government  in  Washington  to  try  to 
arrange  for  a  peaceful  secession. 


CLEVELAND  CONFERENCE  OF  GOVERNORS   349 

other  gentleman  as  his  choice.  The  New  York  appointments, 
however,  are  but  very  partially  under  my  control.  The  Presi 
dent  desires  that  all  the  Republican  interests  be  consulted  &  in 
doing  so  it  is  necessary  to  make  other  concessions. 

If  Mr.  Bryant  wd.  go  to  Europe  (say  Paris)  &  take  Mr. 
Godwin  as  Private  Secretary  he  should  have  my  voice.  His 
approbation  &  yours  have  cheered  me  greatly  in  my  "hard 
times." 

You  may  be  sure  I  did  not  take  this  post  willingly  or  without 
a  clear  perception  of  the  future  disadvantages.  But  did  not 
Milton  say  "Duty  is  of  more  worth  than  glory "f 

Cordially  yours 


The  first  gun  for  secession  was  fired  from  Charleston  on 
Fort  Sumter  the  12th  of  April,  1861,  and  seven  days  later  the 
news  reached  us  of  the  secession  of  Virginia  and  of  the  order 
issued  from  Washington  for  burning  Harper's  Ferry  Arsenal 
to  prevent  its  contents  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  secession 
ists  ;  that  the  troops  from  New  England  passing  through  Balti 
more  toward  Washington  were  fired  upon  and  stoned,  and 
that  finally  they  returned  the  fire,  and  several  persons  were 
killed. 

Civil  War  was  now  fairly  upon  us.  Senator  Sumner  called 
upon  me  the  following  day,  and  his  first  remark  to  me  was 
curiously  characteristic— that  Massachusetts  had  the  glory  of 
shedding  the  first  blood  in  this  contest  for  freedom,  as  at  the 
battle  of  Lexington.  It  seemed  as  though  passing  through 
Baltimore  without  any  shedding  of  blood  would  have  been  a 
disappointment  to  him. 

On  Monday,  the  6th  of  May,  George  Morgan  brought  me 
a  dispatch  from  his  cousin,  Governor  Morgan  of  New  York, 
and  afterwards  a  letter  from  him  stating  that  Governor 
Dennison  of  Ohio  had  telegraphed  him  to  come  to  Cleveland 
to  meet  the  governors  of  Pennsylvania,  Indiana,  Ohio,  Illinois, 
Michigan  and  Wisconsin,  or  to  send  a  representative.  The 
Governor  said  he  could  not  leave  Albany  then,  and  desired  me 
to  go  as  his  representative  to  this  conference. 

I  took  the  train  that  afternoon  for  Albany,  spent  the  night 
with  the  Governor,  and  left  for  Cleveland  the  next  day,  where 
I  arrived  about  six  o'clock  on  the  following  morning. 


350        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

I  met  there  with  Governor  Dennison,  Mr.  Swayne  (after 
wards  a  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States), 
Judge  Swan,  Governor  Eandall  of  Wisconsin,  Governor  Blair 
of  Michigan,  and  Major- General  McClellan,  who  had  been 
recently  invested  with  the  command  of  the  military  forces 
of  the  State  of  Ohio. 

Governor  Dennison  produced  satisfactory  evidence  that 
Governor  Macgoffin  of  Kentucky  was  a  traitor  and  was  arm 
ing  his  State  as  fast  as  he  could  to  resist  the  Union.  He 
read  a  series  of  intercepted  dispatches  passed  between  Moore, 
Governor  of  Louisiana,  and  Macgoffin,  closing  a  bargain  for 
$200,000  worth  of  guns,  all  originally  stolen  from  the  United 
States  and  bought  by  Macgoffin  for  Kentucky.  The  Governor 
said  he  had  invited  us  to  meet  him  to  consult  about  the  duty 
of  the  Northern  border  States  in  case  they  were  assailed,  as 
they  were  liable  to  be  any  day,  and  received,  as  he  feared, 
no  protection  from  the  Federal  Government.  He  said  that 
he  had  received  no  intimation  from  Washington  in  regard  to 
its  policy  for  this  defence,  not  even  an  official  copy  of  the 
President's  proclamation;  that  his  telegram  was  unanswered, 
his  special  messengers  fared  little  better;  that  there  was  every 
reason  to  apprehend  that  the  secessionists  would  cross  the 
Ohio  Eiver  as  soon  as  they  could  get  arms  and  complete  the 
preparations  they  were  making ;  that  the  north  border  of  the 
Ohio  Eiver  was  entirely  defenceless,  while  the  Government 
at  Washington  was  doing  nothing  for  its  security  so  far  as 
he  had  any  knowledge. 

He  avowed  his  intention  to  send  Judge  Swan  and  Colonel 
Swayne  to  Washington  to  present  these  facts  to  the  Govern 
ment  and  ascertain  whether  it  meant  to  prosecute  the  war 
aggressively  or  simply  to  show  with  how  little  disturbance 
it  could  be  carried  on,  and  to  do  as  little  as  possible  to  hurt 
the  feelings  of  the  South. 

He  was  himself  for  an  aggressive  war.  He  said  he  had 
twenty  thousand  soldiers  on  foot  who  had  left  their  various 
employments  at  great  sacrifice  to  defend  their  Government, 
but  they  would  not  be  content  to  spend  all  summer  lazing  in 
camp,  nor  would  he  ask  them  to.  Neither  was  he  willing  to 
answer  for  the  loyalty  of  the  Northwest  if  this  policy  of  neg 
lect  was  continued  much  longer.  "We  must  defend  ourselves 
if  we  are  not  defended,  and,"  he  added,  "it  is  very  dangerous 
to  teach  any  fragment  of  a  nation  that  it  is  capable  of  taking 


CLEVELAND  CONFERENCE  OF  GOVERNORS   351 

care  of  itself."  He  wanted  permission  to  march  into  Kentucky 
and  Virginia  with  his  troops.  He  wanted  a  Western  division 
of  the  army  organized  to  impress  West  Pennsylvania,  Ohio, 
Indiana,  West  Virginia,  Illinois,  Wisconsin  and  Michigan; 
and  he  suggested  that  McClellan,  who  had  the  rank,  should 
have  charge  of  this  army.  He  also  wished  orders  from  Wash 
ington  to  prohibit  the  export  of  provisions  from  the  Ohio  and 
Mississippi  rivers  to  any  of  the  slave  States.  His  own  orders 
to  that  effect  in  Ohio,  he  said,  were  enforced;  but  similar 
orders  from  other  governors  were  violated  with  impunity, 
which  made  discontent  among  Cincinnati  merchants,  who  com 
plained  that  their  sacrifices,  instead  of  doing  good,  only  in 
creased  the  trade  of  other  States. 

All  of  us  present  assented  to  the  justice  and  the  pertinence 
of  Governor  Dennison's  suggestions  and  agreed  to  send  com 
missioners  to  act  with  his  at  Washington.  They  urged  me 
to  go  also.  I  said  I  must  return  to  the  Governor  at  Albany, 
and  he  would  determine  what  further  should  be  done ;  that  I 
had  no  doubt,  when  I  came  to  report  to  him  what  I  had  heard, 
that  he  would  be  impressed  as  I  had  been,  and  if  he  saw  any 
advantage  to  be  gained  by  sending  a  messenger  to  Washing 
ton,  he  would  be  sure  to  send  one. 

I  reached  Albany  the  next  morning  at  five  o'clock,  went 
to  the  Governor's  residence  before  he  was  up,  and  told  him  my 
story.  He  said  he  was  delighted  that  I  had  gone ;  he  agreed 
with  everything  we  had  done  from  the  beginning ;  he  had  been 
in  favor  of  an  aggressive  policy— his  military  board  had 
adopted  some  resolutions  to  that  effect  and  sent  them  on  to 
Washington  already,  thus  practically  anticipating  the  action 
of  Governor  Dennison.  We  agreed,  therefore,  in  view  of  .that 
fact  and  of  the  sufficiency  of  the  testimony  of  the  sentiments 
of  the  meeting  at  Cleveland  borne  by  those  who  were  to  bear 
it  to  Washington,  that  there  was  no  need  of  my  going  on,  or 
any  one  else  at  present.  The  Governor  added  that  he  thought 
he  would  want  me  again,  and  wished  to  know  if  I  could  come. 
I  told  him  I  should  be  glad  to  do  anything  that  he  thought 
I  could  do  better  than  any  one  else,  if  there  was  any  such 
thing,  but  that  I  would  not  compete  for  any  public  service, 
as  I  had  enough  to  busy  myself  with  at  home.  I  only  wished 
to  do  my  share,  however,  at  a  time  like  the  present,  when 
every  man's  service  belonged  to  the  public. 

Mr.  Weed  came  in  as  I  was  leaving  and  said  there  was  a 


352        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

great  want  at  Washington  of  some  suggestive  mind;  that  the 
want  of  military  talent  was  conspicuous.  He  thought,  how 
ever,  that  the  Administration  was  at  last  awake.  It  was  pro 
posed  to  move  an  army  into  Virginia  from  the  north  and  enter 
by  water  up  the  James  Kiver,  and  then  make  a  junction, 
Harper's  Ferry  and  Norfolk  to  be  promptly  retaken.  "Un 
fortunately,  ' '  he  added,  "  Blair  is  tender-footed  when  they 
talk  of  taking  strong  measures  against  Maryland,  and  Scott 
also  when  Virginia  is  to  be  disciplined/' 

I  heard  nothing  more  of  the  governors'  appeal  to  the  Fed 
eral  Government  until  the  following  October,  when  Secretary 
Seward  issued  a  circular  to  the  governors  of  the  seaboard 
and  lake  States,  in  which,,  after  a  special  reference  to  the 
general  apprehensions  of  foreign  intervention,  he  said : 

I  am  able  to  state  to  your  satisfaction  that  the  prospect  for  any 
such  disturbance  is  now  less  serious  than  at  any  previous  period  dur 
ing  the  course  of  the  insurrection.  It  is  nevertheless  necessary  now, 
as  it  has  hitherto  been,  to  take  every  precaution  that  is  possible  to 
avoid  the  evils  of  foreign  war,  to  be  superinduced  upon  those  of  civil 
commotion,  which  we  are  endeavoring  to  cure. 

He  then  urged  the  primary  importance  of  protecting  our  out 
posts  and  harbors  on  the  seas  and  lakes.  In  reference  to  the 
appeal  of  the  governors  he  said  that  in  previous  wars  the  loyal 
States  have  applied  themselves  by  independent  and  separate 
activity  to  the  support  and  aid  of  the  Federal  Government  in 
its  arduous  responsibilities. 

In  view  of  this  fact,  and  relying  upon  the  increase  and  continuance 
of  the  same  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  loyal  States,  the  President 
has  directed  me  to  invite  your  attention  to  the  improvement  and  per 
fection  of  the  defences  of  the  State  over  which  you  preside,  and  to  ask 
you  to  submit  the  subject  to  the  consideration  of  the  Legislature  when 
it  shall  have  assembled. 

Governor  Curtin  of  Pennsylvania  sent  the  Secretary  a  very 
captious  reply  to  this  circular,  the  spirit  and  tone  of  which 
are  sufficiently  conspicuous  in  the  first  paragraph: 

I  received  a  few  days  since  an  envelope,  apparently  from  the  De 
partment  of  State  at  Washington,  enclosing  a  slip  from  a  newspaper 


GOVERNOR  CURTIN  V8.  SECRETARY  SEWARD    353 

purporting  to  be  a  copy  of  a  letter  from  you  to  the  Governor  of  New 
York.  This  mode  of  communicating  advice  by  the  Government  of 
the  United  States  to  the  State  authorities  is  so  unusual  that  I  am  not 
justified  in  assuming,  as  I  do,  that  the  communication  is  authentic. 
I  am  glad  to  learn  that  the  prospect  of  a  disturbance  of  our  amicable 
relations  with  foreign  countries  is  now  less  serious  than  it  has  been  at 
any  period  during  the  course  of  the  insurrection.  The  duty  of  tak 
ing  precautions  against  such  disturbance  is  appropriate  to  the  Gov 
ernment  of  the  United  States,  and  as,  when  the  prospect  was  more 
serious,  it  was  not  thought  fit  to  invite  to  the  subject  the  attention  of 
Congress,  which  had  authority  of  making  suitable  provision,  I  do  not 
understand  how  the  fact  that  it  is  now  less  serious  can  afford  a  reason 
for  calling  on  individual  States  which  have  no  such  authority.  What 
Congress  has  done  or  omitted  you  of  course  must  know,  but  it  seems 
strange  that  general  appropriations  for  military  purposes  should 
render  lawful  the  expense  of  fortifying  Washington,  Cincinnati,  St. 
Louis,  and  other  places,  and  yet  that  the  Government  should  falter 
under  an  apprehension  of  want  of  authority  when  the  question  is  of 
fortifying  seaboard  and  lake  ports. 

The  Governor's  State  pride  was  wounded  by  receiving  a 
circular  intended  for  all  the  governors  addressed  directly  to 
the  Governor  of  New  York.  He  probably  was  not  aware  that 
Governor  Morgan  of  New  York  had  made  an  appeal  to  the 
State  Department  for  prompt  protection  of  the  border  States 
full  six  months  previous  to  this  reply  of  his  to  Mr.  Seward's 
circular,  and  it  is  safe  to  presume  the  official  copies  were  sent 
by  the  State  Department  to  each  of  the  governors  of  the  States 
that  were  represented  at  the  Cleveland  conference,  and  it  is 
possible  that,  in  consequence  of  Pennsylvania  not  being  repre 
sented  at  that  conference,  the  advice  contained  was  not  sup 
posed  to  be  needed  there,  and  hence  the  Governor  first  heard  of 
it  through  a  newspaper  copy.  He  winds  up  a  long  and  intem 
perate  criticism  of  the  Government,  however,  with  the  fol 
lowing  ill-disguised  menace : 

I  have  but  to  say  that  Pennsylvania,  in  any  way  that  may  be  re 
quired,  will  give  her  last  man  and  her  last  dollar  to  quell  domestic 
treason  or  drive  back  foreign  invasion,  and  will  leave  to  a  more  quiet 
season  the  discussion  and  decision  of  the  various  questions  that  may 
arise  from  steps  that  have  been  taken  during  the  existing  crisis. 


354       RETROSPECTIONS  OP  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 
PRESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  Jany.  26, 1861. 
My  Dear  Sir: 

Yours  of  yesterday  is  reed,  for  which  accept  my  thanks.  I 
do  not  know  but  there  may  be  other  candidates  in  our  County 
though  I  do  not  know  that  there  is. 

I  desire  Mr.  Dart's  appointment  and  shall  recommend  it 
to  the  President. 

As  to  the  safety  of  Washington  we  cannot  do  otherwise  than 
rely  on  the  action  of  the  Public  Authorities— though  there 
was  a  time  when  it  was  not  certain  but  we  should  have  to  call 
on  the  sovereigns  themselves  to  come  and  protect  their  Capitol 
from  the  conspiracies  of  their  servants. 

Holt  &  Scott  mean  to  make  it  safe  and  I  think  they  will. 
They  mean  to  have  a  thousand  regular  troops  here— Three 
Batteries  of  flying  artillery  and  some  cavalry.  They  are  dis 
inclined  to  invite  State  Troops  though,  if  through  their  spies 
they  learn  any  thing  that  they  shall  deem  sufficient  to  require 
it,  Genl  Scott  would  be  ready  to  invite  State  Volunteers.  I 
suppose  the  law  does  not  authorize  a  call  for  Militia  or  Volun 
teers  from  the  States.  I  think  Holt  a  very  sensible  man  and  a 
true  one.  Truly  Yours 


PEESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  Jany.  30,  1861. 
My  Dear  Mr.  Bigelow: 

I  congratulate  you  and  Mrs.  Bigelow  on  the  happy  event 
of  which  your  letter  of  29  brings  me  intelligence.  You  are  a 
fortunate  and  happy  man  and  long  may  the  Blessings  which 
a  good  Providence  has  given  you  make  your  life  as  happy  as 
I  think  you  deserve  to  be. 

There  is  no  more  general  truth  than  that  a  man  is  not 
injured  by  what  he  does  not  do  himself.  I  noticed  the  fact 


A  FAITH  THAT  DEFIES  DESPAIR  355 

you  mention  by  being  unable  to  find  it.    Never  allow  your 
self  to  remember  it. 

I  hope  we  shall  get  through  here  without  compromise  but 
nothing  is  certain  and  the  present  state  of  public  affairs  makes 
it  more  difficult  to  calculate  on  what  will  happen  than  usual. 
But  there  is  an  apparent  firmness  in  the  great  body  of  our 
folks  that  is  most  gratifying  and  all  we  hear  of  Lincoln  con 
tributes  to  this  steadiness.  My  faith  is  strong  that  our  Coun 
try  will  go  through  this  most  dangerous  passage  and  find 
firmer  and  safer  foundations  for  her  free  institutions  than 
they  have  ever  had.  We  are  now  encountering  the  single 
great  danger  which  the  original  founders  feared.  If  we  can 
once  overcome  the  lawless  giant  which  has  so  long  ruled  the 
Government  and  threatened  liberty  and  the  public  peace  we 
may  hope  for  a  return  to  the  early  policy  of  the  whole  Country 
which  looked  to  the  ultimate  extinction  of  Slavery.  We  must 
do  our  whole  duty,  and  have  faith  in  the  wise  Providence  that 
overrules  the  affairs  of  men  and  nations.  I  am  happy  in  a 
faith  that  defies  despair. 

Yours  Truly 


PRESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  Feb.  11, 1861. 
My  Dear  Friend: 

I  thank  you  for  your  report,  interesting  to  me  as  being  the 
subject  of  a  part  of  it.  Nothing  would  be  more  welcome  to 
me  than  a  fair  full  report  of  our  interview  so  far  as  I  was 
concerned  and  a  clear  and  distinct  statement  of  my  position, 
as  it  would  save  me  all  the  trouble  of  defining  it— a  thing  by 
the  way  which  I  have  never  yet  felt  the  necessity  of  doing. 

If  the  Eeport  is  published  please  do  not  fail  to  send  me  a 
copy  of  it. 

Providence  in  one  way  &  another  that  we  should  not  think 
of  ourselves,  is  helping  us  along  here.  It  is  probable  that  the 
Peace  Congress  or  Virginia  conference  of  delegates  from  the 
States  .will,  carry  us  over  a  good  many  days  and  aid  to  bring 
the  4th  of  March  innocuous.  The  Gulf  States  are  moving 
rapidly  while  Buchanan's  time  lasts. 


356        RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

If  I  had  not  become  almost  a  religious  man  (in  very  truth) 
I  do  not  know  but  I  should  think  there  was  trouble  ahead. 
But  my  faith  is  perfect  that  we,  that  is  our  Glorious  Country, 
is  to  go  through  all  the  perils  that  threaten,  with  safety  & 
honor.  Yours  truly 


PEESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  Feb.  16,  1861. 
My  Dear  Sir: 

Your  letters,  always  welcome,  you  will  allow  me  to  say  are 
none  the  less  so  because  you  seem  to  write  under  a  little  irrita 
tion.  You  speak  kindly  of  the  few  words  I  said  to  Mason  the 
other  day— and  then  blaze  a  little.  Don't  allow  yourself  to  be 
disturbed  by  a  few  words  that  may  fall  out  by  the  way  side 
when  a  traveller  is  surrounded  and  compelled  to  say  something 
when  perhaps  he  would  be  glad  to  be  silent.  What  Lincoln 
has  said  is  on  the  right  side  though  I  have  been  disposed  to 
wait  for  the  Inaugural.  The  Lord  will  take  care  of  all  these 
things.  We  are  going  safely  through  I  trust— but  we  need  all 
the  wisdom  and  self  possession  that  the  Lord  will  give  us. 

Upon  the  Tariff  bill  you  have  a  thing  to  pound  and  you 
pound  it  with  right  good  will.  I  do  not  see  how  with  the 
opinions  existing  here  the  passage  of  the  bill  can  be  avoided. 
Indeed  I  suppose  I  must  vote  for  it.  We  struck  out  the  effort 
to  restrict  the  warehousing  system  today  and  leave  that  un 
touched.  I  appreciate  what  you  say  but  there  are  difficulties 
on  whichever  side  we  turn  our  eyes.  We  must  take  the  best 
path  we  can  and  move  on  with  good  courage.  I  am  particu 
larly  obliged  to  you  for  saying  what  you  do  about  the  tariff 
because  if  it  was  possible  it  should  influence  my  action— but  I 
do  not  see  how  I  can  turn  aside  from  it— or  how  my  action 
could  change  the  result.  Nobody  can  tell  what  Buchanan  will 
do  or  will  not  do.  If  you  come  across  one  of  the  Committee's 
pamphlets  send  me  one. 

Full  of  faith  and  hope  &  with  my  love  to  all  yours 

Yours  truly 


A  FREE  PRESS  FOR  ENGLAND  357 


WILLIAM  HAEGEEAVES  TO  BIGELOW 

CRAVEN  HILL  GARDENS,  HYDE  PARK, 

5  June,  1861. 
Dear  Mr.  Bigelow: 

Turning  to  our  less  important  home  politics— I  am  sure  you 
will  congratulate  us  on  our  triumph  of  this  year.  The  Com 
mons  have  passed  a  Bill  which  the  Lords  cannot  refuse,  and 
we  shall  at  last  have  a  free  press  indeed!  We  have  had  no 
such  party  struggle  since  the  Eepeal  of  the  Corn-Laws,  and, 
measured  by  its  results,  this  will  probably  be  no  less  a  Eevolu- 
tion.  Verily,  they  know  not  what  they  have  done.  With  a 
penny  paper  in  every  village  the  Squires,  will  go  mad,  and 
shall  I  add  to  perdition.  We  have  now  a  circulation  of  penny 
papers  daily  of  300,000— against  the  Times'  45,000.  What 
will  the  ratio  be  when  the  pennies  reach  one  million  which  they 
soon  will  do  1  My  wife  and  all  our  friends  unite  in  most  kind 
remembrances  to  Mrs.  Bigelow  and  yourself —and  I  am 

Most  truly  yours 


PEESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  July  19,  1861. 
My  Dear  Friend: 

Yours  of  July  15  is  reed.  I  thank  you  for  its  kind  invita 
tion  and  intend  after  Congress  adjourns  to  take  some  leisure 
and  count  with  pleasure  upon  a  visit  to  you  at  the  Squirrels. 
Nothing  has  occurred  of  note  in  the  City  since  you  left.  Genl 
McDowell  is  advancing,  of  which  you  have  the  news.  Genl 
Scott  told  me  today  that  lie  expected  news  of  an  assault  at 
Manassas  Junction  before  to-morrow  night.1  Every  conceiv 
able  mode  of  supplying  the  vacancies  at  West  Point  have  been 
proposed  and  all  have  been  voted  down  in  the  Senate.  Some- 

1  The  result  is  known  to  history  as  the  first  battle  of  Bull  Run. 


358        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

thing  may  yet  be  done  to  come  from  action  in  the  House.  I 
send  you  the  Message  and  documents  which  are  just  printed. 
My  kind  remembrance  of  all  at  the  Squirrels. 

Yours  Truly 


PEESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON.  July  24, 1861. 
Dear  Friend: 

Yours  of  July  23  reed.  Be  not  cast  down.  The  disaster 
at  Manassas  is  very  sad  and  we  mourn.  But  there  is  no  cause 
for  discouragement.  The  Eepublic  will  live  and  triumph  over 
Treason.  God  reigns— and  his  power  is  over  all. 

Very  Truly  Yours 


The  following  letter  was  written  after  the  first  battle  of 
the  Civil  War,  known  to  history  as  the  battle  of  Bull  Bun, 
General  Irvin  McDowell  commanding  on  the  Union  side  and 
General  Beauregard  commanding  the  Confederates. 


WILLIAM  H.  EUSSELL  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  July  27, 1861. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

It  is  not  true  that  I  commanded  the  Confederates  in  person 
or  led  off  the  Federalist  centre ;  neither  did  I  lie  on  my  stomach 
disguised  as  Raymond  of  the  Times  and  kill  Beauregard 
with  a  pistol  tooth  pick  as  he  rode  insultingly  over  the  battle 
field;  neither  did  I  say  that  I  had  never  seen  such  slaugh 
ter  at  Solferino  (where  I  was  n't)  or  at  Inkermann  where 
I  was ;  nor  did  I  set  down  the  loss  of  the  Federalists  at  12,000 


W.  H.  RUSSELL  ON  BULL  RUN  359 

(though  I  do  think  every  way,  it  was  near  1200) ;  in  fact  any 
thing  you  see  in  print  about  me,  contradict  point  blank  on 
my  authority,  even  if  it  be  that  I  am  a  gentleman  who  regards 
his  word,  (for  then  I  should  begin  to  doubt  it  was  so)  or  that 
I  told  any  one  anything  in  strict  confidence,  for  then  I  am  cer 
tain  it  is  not  true,  and  he  would  not  print  it  correctly,  in  his 
anxiety  to  keep  his  trust.  I  don't  mind  telling  you  that  a 
battle  which  should  never  have  been  fought  at  all,  was  hardly 
fought— vu  the  means  to  the  end— was  unsuccessful— and  was 
terminated  by  the  most  singularly  disgraceful  panic  and  flight 
on  record,  with  consequences  of  a  more  serious  nature  politi 
cally  than  were  militarily  evident.  The  attempt  made  to  dis 
guise  the  disasters  of  an  army  which  left  its  guns  and  wagons 
(which  could  not  be  rallied  at  Centerville  or  even  at  Fairfax: 
"the  wicked  flee  when  no  one  pursueth")  and  fell  upon  Wash 
ington  utterly  routed  by  its  own  fears,  must  make  the  affair 
even  more  disastrous,  because  the  smallness  of  the  loss  and 
the  greatness  of  the  actual  result  are  withering  commentaries 
on  the  monstrous  mouthings  about  "unparalleled  heroism" 
and  the  "orderly  retreat"  which  appear  in  one  of  the  papers. 
I  hope  Mr.  Wilson1  is  satisfied  now.  He  and  those  like  him 
have  inflicted  a  heavy  blow  on  their  cause.  You  used  to  say 
you  wished  almost  that  the  North  should  be  beaten  in  the  first 
fight,  but  surely,  not  on  such  terms  as  these.  I  tell  you  I  am 
satisfied  from  what  I  saw— particularly  of  the  Perm,  regiment 
which  deserted  the  field  on  the  day  of  battle  because  time  was 
up— of  the  officers  running  from  the  field  shouting  out  "we  're 
whipped"  and  of  the  men  who  could  not  be  held  together, 
that  the  North  will  be  beaten  by  the  South  as  long  as  it  relies 
on  the  present  set  of  officers  or  of  men.  Not  but  that  the 
men  may  fight  bravely  enough  when  re-organized,  tho'  this 
army  will  not  do  so  till  that  process  has  been  effected.  The 
South  is  national  and  more  so  than  you  are.  She  says  l '  come 
along,  my  boys."  You  have  said  to  Germans  and  Irish  "go 
along,  my  boys ! ' '  And  though  they  will  fight  well  they  must 
have  officers  with  some  esprit  militaire,  who  don't  spend  their 
lives  at  the  bars,  but  work  as  I  have  seen  the  "drinking" 
Southerners  work  at  drill.  I  had  a  nice  day  of  it ;  once  fired 

1  Senator  Wilson  of  Massachusetts  had  been  denouncing  General  McDowell 
in  the  Senate  for  his  delay  in  giving  battle  to  the  insurgents  who  were  in  full 
force  within  a  dozen  or  fifteen  miles  of  Washington. 


360        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

at  by  one  of  our  men  for  stopping  his  flight,  another  time 
nearly  done  for  by  another  scoundrel— and  such  a  ride  into 
Washington !  I  have  been  ill  the  last  two  days  from  a  1 1 Run" 
—not  bloody  or  big,  but  weak  and  watery,  and  I  can't  write 
much  more.  I  hear  from  my  wife  every  mail.  She  is  very 
sad  and  very  nervous  and  not  at  all  strong. 

Yours  truly  always 


During  a  visit  which  I  made  to  Washington  early  in  July, 
and  only  a  few  days  before  the  first  battle  of  the  Civil  War, 
I  rode  with  old  Mr.  Francis  Blair  and  with  Mr.  William  H. 
Eussell  over  to  the  headquarters  of  General  McDowell  at 
Arlington.  I  had  known  McDowell  since  he  was  a  lieutenant 
on  the  staff  of  General  Scott,  and  we  were  quite  intimate 
friends.  I  had  great  esteem  for  him  and  great  confidence  in 
his  military  capacity.  He  walked  with  us  through  the  camp. 
He  said  to  me,  "  This'  is  not  an  army.  It  will  take  a  long  time 
to  make  it  an  army."  He  seemed  greatly  depressed  during 
our  entire  visit. 

A  day  or  two  later,  on  the  llth,  I  breakfasted  with  him  at 
Arlington,  and  he  rode  back  with  me  to  town.  He  seemed 
oppressed  more  than  ever  with  the  weight  of  the  responsi 
bility  resting  upon  him,  and  he  made  me  realize  how  pro 
foundly,  by  a  remark  which  he  made  to  me :  "  I  envy  you  more 
than  any  man  living,"  meaning  by  that  that  I  was  in  a  position 
of  no  further  responsibility,  even  as  a  journalist.  The  poor 
fellow  could  not  proclaim  his  distrust  of  his  army  to  the  public. 
He  was  an  untried  officer.  The  Commander-in-chief  was  a 
septuagenarian,  unable  to  take  the  field,  .the  President  and 
his  Cabinet  were  every  one  untried  executive  officers  and 
entirely  without  skill  in  or  experience  of  military  affairs,  nor 
was  there  any  power  to  be  invoked  competent  to  silence  the 
clamor  for  the  army  to  move.  I  pitied  him  as  I  had  never 
pitied  any  man  in  my  life  before.  It  finally  seemed  wiser 
to  General  Scott  that  McDowell  should  no  longer  risk  the  con 
sequences  of  delay.  The  battle  so  disastrous  and  humiliating 
to  the  Union  cause  was  fought  on  the  21st  of  July,  1861.  I 
was  moved  to  write  the  general  a  brief  note  expressing  my 


MAJOR-GENERAL  McDOWELL'S  DISCOMFITURE  361 

tenderest  sympathy  for  him  personally  and  my  unimpaired 
confidence  in  him  as  the  Commander  of  our  armies.  The 
letter  which  follows  is  his  reply : 


MAJOB-GENERAL  McDOWELL  TO  BIGELOW 

ABLJNGTON,  July  30,  1861. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

Many  thousand  thanks  for  your  kind  note.  It  is  my  chief 
consolation  at  this  time,  that  my  friends  seem  warmer  towards 
me  than  ever.  I  have  many  evidences  that  they  do  not  give 
me  up  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  dear  press!  though  I  must 
say  for  the  latter  that  they  are  not  as  savage  as  I  expected. 
For  the  most  part  they  have  dealt  fairly  by  me,  and  where 
they  have  erred,  have  not  done  so  intentionally. 

It  is  certainly  a  great  consolation  to  get  such  notes  as  yours 
and  Prof.  Mahan's  and  it  encourages  me  to  try  again  even 
with  such  a  vicious  system  as  that  we  are  now  working  under 
—the  Volunteers. 

Mbst  of  my  subordinate  commanders,  however,  are  in  de 
spair  and  so  are  many  of  the  regimental  and  company  officers. 

One  N.  Y.  Eegt.  is  so  entirely  demoralized  that  the  best 
thing  we  can  do  with  it  will  be  to  send  it  home  as  worthless. 
In  another,  all  the  field  officers  have  resigned. 

When  the  regts.  were  repulsed,  the  officers  could  not  be 
found  to  ta*ke  care  of  their  men! 

The  first  Zouaves  are  scattered  every  where  and  are  worth 
less! 

Is  not  this  a  cheering  state  of  affairs  I 

With  kindest  regards  to  Mrs.  Bigelow, 

Yours  sincerely 


Early  in  the  month  of  July,  1856,  John  Charles  Fremont  had 
been  nominated  as  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency  by  the  Free 
Soil,  Free  Speech  and  Free  Labor  party,  consisting  of  the  anti- 


362        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

slavery  and  the  antislavery  extension  wings  of  the  old  Whig 
and  Democratic  parties.  He  received  at  the  election  in  Novem 
ber  114  electoral  votes  from  eleven  States,  Buchanan,  the 
Democratic  candidate,  receiving  174  electoral  votes  from  nine 
teen  States.  Fremont's  popular  vote  was  1,341,000,  against 
1,838,000  for  Buchanan.  His  prominence  in  this  contest  and 
his  connection  by  marriage  with  Senator  Thomas  H.  Benton 
of  Missouri  led,  soon  after  the  breaking  out  of  the  Civil  War, 
to  his  receiving  from  President  Lincoln  a  commission  as 
major-general  and  an  assignment  to  the  command  of  the  West 
ern  District.  On  the  31st  of  August,  1861,  he  issued  an  order 
emancipating  all  the  slaves  owned  in  his  district  by  people 
who  were  in  arms  against  the  United  States.  As  this  order 
was  unauthorized  and  by  the  President  deemed  premature,  it 
was  annulled,  and  the  general  was  relieved  from  his  command. 

Mr.  James  Bowen,  the  author  of  the  following  letter,  was  an 
unusually  thoughtful,  intelligent  and  judicially  minded  man, 
who  took  a  lively  interest  in  public  affairs,  had  always  been 
a  confidential  friend  of  Mr.  Seward,  and  shortly  after  this 
letter  was  written  was  appointed  by  Mr.  Lincoln  to  a  very 
responsible  office  in  New  Orleans— I  think  it  was  provost- 
marshal.  When  his  services  there  became  unnecessary  by  the 
recapture  of  New  Orleans  from  the  Confederates,  he  returned 
to  New  York  and  resumed  the  position  he  had  formerly  held 
as  Commissioner  of  Emigration. 

I  received  few  letters  from  any  one  during  the  Civil  War 
whose  forecast  of  the  future  seemed  to  be  less  disturbed  by  the 
noise  and  excitement  then  naturally  prevailing  among  all 
classes  in  America.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  contrast  the  sobriety 
of  his  judgments  with  the  recklessness  of  many  occupying  far 
more  responsible  positions,  albeit  his  approval  of  Fremont's 
performances  in  Missouri  was  a  little  hasty. 


JAMES  BOWEN  TO  BIGELOW 

Dear  Bigelow: 

The  event  of  the  week  is  Fremont's  liberation  of  the  slaves 
of  Missouri.     Though  in  exact  conformity  with  the  proclama- 


CHASE  AND   THE  FEDERAL  FINANCES         363 

tion  of  the  President  it  was,  I  believe,  unexpected  at  Wash 
ington,  and  I  think  would  have  been  forbidden  had  the  Cabinet 
been  consulted.  But  the  declaration  has  been  made  and  it 
is  wonderful  to  see  the  general  approval  of  the  act.  The  press 
acquiesce  in  the  expediency  and  justice,  but  the  press  but 
faintly  represents  the  hearty  approval  of  the  great  mass  of  the 
Community.  I  have  not  yet  seen  the  man  either  democrat 
or  republican  who  doubts  its  wisdom.  As  an  indication  of  the 
popularity  of  the  measure,  I  will  state  that  I  have  written  to 
Seward  to-day  officially  that  five  thousand  Germans  are  pre 
pared  to  enlist  in  this  city,  provided  they  can  be  placed  under 
Fremont,  who  will  not  enlist  to  serve  under  another  Command. 
Fremont  is  the  favorite  General  of  the  Germans.  But  no  such 
decided  preference  would  have  been  expressed,  had  he  not 
issued  his  proclamation  freeing  the  slaves  of  secessionists  in 
Missouri. 

You  recollect  the  agreement  of  the  Banks  to  take  the  loan 
of  150  millions— 50  millions  on  the  19th  Augst.— 50  millions 
on  the  15th  Oct.  provided  the  first  portion  should  be  disposed 
of.  The  disposition  of  the  first  requires  the  transfer  to  in 
dividuals  of  a  million  a  day,  but  thus  far,  the  maximum  amount 
disposed  of  on  any  day  has  been  about  $350,000.— There  should 
not  be  an  unfavorable  augury  from  this,  for  the  Secy,  of  the 
Treasury  has  not  yet  issued  the  notes,  and  Capitalists  are 
indisposed  to  subscribe  before  they  shall  have  appeared  in  the 
market.  I  think  the  Banks  which  have  taken  the  loan  have 
but  little  apprehension  of  its  lying  in  their  vaults.  And  in 
connection  with  this  loan  I  must  mention  one  of  its  incidents 
in  which  you  were  implicated. 

While  Chase1  was  negotiating  with  the  Bankers  in -New 
York  he  wrote  to  the  President  that  to  ensure  success  it  was 
necessary  Stevens'2  son  should  be  appointed  Consul  to  Paris 
—immediately  on  receipt  of  the  letter,  your  Commission  was 
made  out.  You  know,  I  suppose,  that  Cameron3  had  expressed 
his  readiness  to  leave  the  Cabinet.  A  week  since  it  was  prob 
able  that  both  he  and  Welles4  would  vacate  their  offices. 

1  Salmon  P.  Chase  was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 

2  President  of  the  Bank  of  Commerce. 

8  Secretary  of  War  and  for  many  years  United  States  Senator  from  Penn 
sylvania. 

4  Secretary  of  the  Navy  and  editor  of  the  Hartford  Times  during  the  Presi 
dency  of  Jackson  and  Van  Buren. 


364        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

The  opportunity  afforded  by  taking  the  loan  for  the  exercise 
of  power  could  not  be  lost  by  our  mercantile  friends,  so  a  com 
mittee  was  appointed  by  the  Bankers  of  Boston  and  one  by 
the  Bankers  of  this  City  to  repair  to  "Washington  and  repre 
sent  to  the  President  the  public  necessity  of  turning  out 
Welles,  Cameron  and  Seward.  Welles  and  Cameron,  whom  a 
puff  of  wind  would  have  blown  from  their  places  a  week  ago, 
are  now  immovable.  The  success  of  the  expedition  to  -Cape 
Hatteras  has  greatly  elated  our  people;  the  disgrace  of  Bull 
Eun  is  lost  in  the  glory  of  the  naval  victory. 

We  begin  again  to  direct  our  eyes  to  Washington.  A  battle 
from  the  near  proximity  of  the  two  armies  seems  'inevitable 
and  speedy.  The  Cabinet  has  no  apprehensions  of  the  next 
Conflict  though  I  fear  their  confidence  is,  in  fact,  based  on  their 
ignorance  of  the  strength  of  the  enemy.  We  have  about 
120,000  men  between  Washington  and  Harpers  Ferry.  What 
the  strength  of  the  rebels  may  be  I  do  not  believe  is  known 
north  of  their  camp. 

Parties  will  be  broken  up  in  this  state  this  fall  and  new 
crystallizations  formed.  Our  people  will  nominate  for  state 
officers,  men  in  favor  of  the  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war 
without  respect  to  their  former  political  views.  I  think  D.  S. 
Dickinson1  will  be  on  our  ticket. 

Yours  sincerely 

NEW  YORK,  4  Sept.  1861. 


On  the  14th  of  August,  1861,  the  following  dispatch  reached 
me  at  my  country  home : 

Mr.  Motley  goes  out  in  the  Europa,  from  Boston,  August  21.     Can 
you  go  at  the  same  time  1 

F.  W.  SEWARD. 


This  was  my  first  official  information,  if  such  it  could  be 
regarded,  that  I  had  been  appointed  Consul  to  Paris. 

On  the  following  day  I  left  for  Washington  to  learn  from 
President  Lincoln  and  Secretary  Seward  why  they  were  send- 

1 A  Hunker  Senator  from  New  York  then  acting  with  the  Union  party. 


APPOINTED  CONSUL  TO  PARIS  365 

ing  me  out  of  the  country,  as  I  had  expressed  to  no  one,  nor 
experienced,  any  desire  for  public  employment.  Mr.  Seward 
said  that  the  Government  had  selected  me  for  the  Paris  con 
sulate  not  primarily  for  the  discharge  of  consular  duties,  which 
were  then  trifling  and  every  day  diminishing,  but  to  look  after 
the  press  in  France.  Our  legations  and  consulates  had  been 
filled  largely,  not  to  say  exclusively,  during  the  Administration 
of  President  Buchanan,  with  men  of  more  or  less  doubtful  loy 
alty,  and  London  and  Paris  were  swarming  with  Confederate 
emissaries.  The  officials  and  unofficials  were  all  equally  active 
in  propagating  the  impression  that  the  insurgent  States  had 
been  wronged  and  oppressed  by  the  Washington  Government ; 
that  Confederates  were  fighting  only  for  their  common-law 
rights,  not  for  slavery ;  that  disunion  was  inevitable  and  immi 
nent,  and  that  neither  the  Washington  Government  nor  the 
people  of  the  loyal  States  in  the  impending  quarrel  had  any 
just  claim  to  the  sympathies  or  respect  of  any  foreign  power. 
Mr.  Seward  said  it  was  important  to  dispel  these  impressions 
without  delay.  For  this  purpose  he  was  anxious  that  the  official 
representatives  of  the  new  Administration  should  hasten 
to  their  posts,  and  he  relied  upon  me  to  see  that  the  people 
of  France  were  enlightened  as  speedily  as  possible  in  regard 
to  the  nature  and  extent  of  our  domestic  troubles. 

The  day  following  my  arrival  in  Washington  and  my  con 
ference  with  Mr.  Seward,  Preston  King,  Senator  from  New 
York,  invited  me  to  go  with  him  to  be  presented  to  President 
Lincoln,  an  invitation  which  of  course  I  embraced  with  alac 
rity;  for  as  yet  I  had  not  met  him  and  knew  him  only  by  his 
famous  senatorial  campaign  against  Douglas  in  Illinois  and  the 
masterly  address  which  he  delivered  at  the  Cooper  Institute 
shortly  before  his  nomination  in  New  York,  at  which  my 
partner  Mr.  Bryant  presided.  Of  his  personality  as  yet  I 
had  no  distinct  impression,  and  in  that  respect  I  think  most 
of  the  country  outside  of  Illinois  were  much  in  my  condition. 
There  had  been  nothing  in  his  advent  at  Washington,  whither 
he  was  obliged  to  find  his  way  in  a  humiliating  disguise,  to 
inflame  the  popular  heart,  and  our  capital  swarmed  with  his 
political  enemies. 

He  had  probably  no  more  loyal  and  devoted  friend  in  the 
Senate  than  Preston  King.  t  '  The  impression  Lincoln  had  left 
upon  him  during  the  two  months  of  his  Presidency "— I  quote 
from  my  diary— "  was  that  he  was  not  only  unequal  to  the 


366        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

present  crisis,  but  to  the  position  he  now  holds  at  any  time/' 
He  had  been  requested  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  through  Vice-Presi- 
dent  Hamlin  of  Maine,  to  ascertain  whether  Seward  would 
decline  the  portfolio  of  Secretary  of  State  if  it  were  offered 
to  him.  "King  said  he  ventured  a  little  in  the  direction  of 
the  President's  wishes,  but  soon  discovered  that  it  would  not 
do  for  him  to  go  further.  He  told  Hamlin  that  the  President 
had  better  ask  Seward  directly  for  the  information  he  sought, 
for  he  felt  that  he  was  not  the  proper  person  to  undertake  such 
an  embassy.  Such  was  about  the  substance  though  not  the 
precise  words  which  King  used.  They  were  accompanied  by 
a  suggestive  laugh  which  to  those  who  knew  King  always 
meant  more  than  his  words. " 

"About  a  fortnight  later  Seward  came  to  King  to  say  that 
Mr.  Lincoln  wanted  him  for  his  Prime  Minister,  and  in  view 
of  the  peculiar  situation  of  the  country,  which  was  ascribed 
mainly  to  him,  he  could  not  honorably  refuse  his  assistance, 
etc.  Seward,  he  added,  has  acquired  a  very  controlling  in 
fluence  with  the  President  and  is  very  much  disposed  to  do, 
and  be  responsible  for  everything  done,  himself. ' ' 

It  is  rather  a  curious  psychological  fact  that  the  impres 
sion  which  President  Lincoln  made  on  most  people  who  saw 
him  during  the  first  months,  perhaps  I  may  say  the  first 
year,  of  his  Administration  corresponded  substantially  with 
that  received  by  Senator  King.  I  was  constantly  meeting 
men  directly  from  Washington,  and  there  was  an  almost  uni 
form  lack  of  that  enthusiasm  which  usually  accompanies  the 
accession  of  a  new  dynasty  and  a  new  dispensation  of 
patronage. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  the  new  President,  received  us  in  his 
private  room  at  an  early  hour  of  the  morning;  an 
other  gentleman  was  with  him  at  the  time,  a  member  of  the 
Senate,  I  believe.  We  were  with  him  from  a  half  to  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour.  The  conversation,  in  which  I  took  little 
or  no  part,  turned  upon  the  operations  in  the  field.  I  ob 
served  no  sign  of  weakness  in  anything  the  President  said, 
neither  did  I  hear  anything  that  particularly  impressed  me, 
which,  under  the  circumstances,  was  not  surprising.  What 
did  impress  me,  however,  was  what  I  can  only  describe  as  a 
certain  lack  of  sovereignty.  He  seemed  to  me,  nor  was  it  in 
the  least  strange  that  he  did,  like  a  man  utterly  unconscious 


A.D.  1809 


Abraham  Lincoln 
Sixteenth  President  of  the  United  States 


A.D.  1865 


FIRST  SIGHT  AND  IMPRESSIONS  OF  LINCOLN     367 

of  the  space  which  the  President  of  the  United  States  occupied 
that  day  in  the  history  of  the  human  race,  and  of  the  vast 
power  for  the  exercise  of  which  he  had  become  personally 
responsible.  This  impression  was  strengthened  by  Mr.  Lin 
coln  's  modest  habit  of  disclaiming  knowledge  of  affairs  and 
familiarity  with  duties,  and  frequent  avowals  of  ignorance, 
which,  even  where  it  exists,  it  is  as  well  for  a  captain  as  far 
as  possible  to  conceal  from  the  public.  The  authority  of  an 
executive  officer  largely  consists  in  what  his  constituents  think 
it  is.  Up  to  that  time  Mr.  Lincoln  had  had  few  opportunities 
of  showing  the  nation  the  qualities  which  won  all  hearts  and 
made  him  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  and  enduring  historic 
characters  of  the  century. 

Lincoln's  greatness  must  be  sought  for  in  the  constituents 
of  his  moral  nature.  He  was  so  modest  by  nature  that  he  was 
perfectly  content  to  walk  behind  any  man  who  wished  to  walk 
before  him.  I  do  not  know  that  history  has  made  a  record  of  the 
attainment  of  any  corresponding  eminence  by  any  other  man 
who  so  habitually,  so  constitutionally,  did  to  others  as  he  would 
have  them  do  to  him.  Without  any  pretensions  to  religious 
excellence,  from  the  time  he  first  was  brought  under  the  ob 
servation  of  the  nation,  he  seemed,  like  Milton,  to  have  walked 
"as  ever  in  his  great  Taskmaster's  eye."  St.  Paul  hardly 
endured  more  indignities  and  buffetings  without  complaint. 
He  was  not  a  learned  man.  He  was  not  even  one  who  would 
deserve  to  be  called  in  our  day  an  educated  man— knew  little 
rather  than  much  of  what  the  world  is  proud  of.  He  had 
never  been  out  of  the  United  States  nor  seen  much  of  the 
portion  of  them  lying  east  of  the  Alleghany  Mountains.  But 
the  spiritual  side  of  his  nature  was  so  highly  organized  that 
it  rendered  superfluous  much  of  the  experience  which  to  most 
men  is  indispensable— the  choicest  prerogative  of  genius.  It 
lifted  him  unconsciously  above  the  world,  above  most  of  the 
men  who  surrounded  him,  and  gave  him  a  wisdom  in  emer 
gencies  which  is  bestowed  only  on  those  who  love  their  fellow- 
man  as  themselves.  His  Gettysburg  speech  is  perhaps,  on 
the  whole,  the  most  enduring  bit  of  eloquence  that  has  ever 
been  uttered  on  this  continent,  and  yet  one  finds  in  it  none 
of  the  tricks  of  the  forum  or  the  stage,  nor  any  trace  of  the 
learning  of  the  scholar,  nor  the  need  of  it.  In  the  ordinary 
sense  of  the  word  Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  a  statesman.  Had  he 


368        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

come  to  power  when  Van  Bur  en  did  or  when  Cleveland  did, 
he  would  probably  have  left  Washington  at  the  close  of  his 
term  as  obscure  as  either  of  them.  The  issues  presented  to 
the  people  of  the  United  States  at  the  Presidential  election 
of  1860  were  to  a  larger  extent  moral  questions,  humanly 
speaking,  than  were  those  presented  at  any  other  Presidential 
election.  They  were :  first,  the  right  of  the  majority  to  rule ; 
second,  the  right  of  eight  millions,  more  or  less,  of  our  fellow- 
beings  to  their  freedom;  and,  third,  the  institutions  and  tra 
ditions  which  Washington  planted  and  Jefferson  watered, 
with  the  sacrifices  necessary  for  their  preservation.  These 
questions  subordinated  all  other  political  issues  and  appealed 
more  directly  and  forcibly  to  the  moraj  sentiments  of  this 
nation  than  any  issues  they  had  ever  before  been  called  to 
settle  either  at  the  ballot-box  or  by  force  of  arms.  A  Presi 
dent  was  needed  at  Washington  to  represent  these  moral 
forces.  Such  a  President  was  providentially  found  in  Lin 
coln,  even  as  the  son  of  Kish  found  a  crown  while  searching 
for  his  father's  asses. 

Looking  back  upon  the  Administration  and  upon  all  the 
blunders  which,  from  a  worldly  point  of  view,  Lincoln  and  his 
immediate  advisers  seemed  to  have  made,  and  then  pausing 
to  consider  the  results  of  that  Administration,  so  far  exceed 
ing  in  value  and  importance  for  the  country  anything  which 
the  most  foresighted  statesman  had  expected  or  conceived, 
we  realize  that  we  had  what  above  all  things  we  most  needed, 
a  President  who  walked  by  faith  and  not  by  sight;  who  did 
not  rely  upon  his  own  compass,  but  followed  a  cloud  by  day 
and  a  fire  by  night,  which  he  had  learned  to  trust  implicitly. 

I  sailed  with  my  family  for  Liverpool  in  the  Persia  on  the 
28th  of  August,  1861,  and  while  the  disastrous  battle  of  Bull 
Eun,  fought  on  the  21st  of  July,  was  still  casting  gloomy 
shadows  over  the  country.  After  a  week  spent  in  London  to 
look  over  the  situation  with  Mr.  Adams  and  with  some  Eng 
lish  friends  whose  judgment  I  valued,  I  left  for  and  reached 
Paris  on  Saturday,  the  13th  of  September. 

I  took  possession  of  the  consulate  on  the  following  Monday, 
and  made  myself  as  useful  to  the  Government  as  I  knew  how 
to,  in  that  position,  until  I  was  transferred  to  another  of 
larger  responsibilities. 


W.  H.  RUSSELL  AND  THE  LONDON  TIMES     369 
WILLIAM  H.  EUSSELL  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  Augt.  3,  1861. 

Quando  digressu  veteris  confusus  amici 
Laudo  tamen— Buttermilk  Falls ! 
— Gratum  litus  amoeni 
Secessus. 

Ferryman  who  directs  the  skiff  across  the  turbid  lacteal 
stream,  when  wilt  thou  receive  me?  Alas!  I  cannot  answer, 
for  whilst  you,  sinking  patriotism  in  philosophy,  Home 
opathy,  buttermilk  &  domestic  joys,  gaze  out  upon  the  struggle 
from  the  branches  filled  with  congenial  Squirrels,  grim  Mars 
holds  me  to  the  front  &  rumor  of  Nemesis,  Atropos  &  Lachesis, 
Gorgons,  Hydras  &  Chimairas  dire  lacerate  my  soul  with 
instant  fears  of  fray  &  murder.  Well,  there  's  no  people  as 
ever  I  seed  or  heerd  on  takes  a  batin'  with  such  complacency 
as  the  children  of  Hail,  Columbia,  Happy  Land,  &c.  &c.  No, 
Bigelow,  I  can't  go,  &  that  's  a  fact,  for  some  time  to  come,  but 
really  &  truly  you  '11  see  me  dropping  in  to  you  like  a  13  in. 
shell  some  of  these  days,  &  I  '11  give  you  due  notice  by  a  pre 
liminary  report.  It  was  a  beautiful  exercise  of  gymnastic 
vigour,  friend  B.— that  on  21st  of  ult.  The  Federalists  acted 
like  an  Irishman  at  a  fair— ran  away  when  they  had  knocked 
down  their  enemy— afraid  of  the  police  coming  perhaps.  I 
shall  always  go  in  the  front  in  future.  What  is  it  all  going 
to  end  in?  I  remain  faithful  to  my  original  belief  that  it  's 
all  up  with  U.  S.  but  of  course  no  real  TJ.  S.  man  will  believe 
it.  Even  conquest,  subjugation  &  submission  won't  make  it 
so,  as  it  was.  The  illustrations  in  U.  S.  papers  are  abs-urd. 
Ireland  &  the  rebellion  for  instance.  It  broke  out  in  two 
counties  at  a  time  that  Ireland  had  its  own  Parlt.  &  it  was  that 
Parlt.  wh.  was  most  active  in  voting  men  &  money  to  put  down 
the  insurrection  in  Wicklow,  Wexf  ord,  &c.  The  other  parallels 
suggested  are  more  unparallel. 

By  mail  July  15  date  I  reed  a  brief  from  wife.  Still  in 
valid.  Great  nervous  suffering  &  latest  born  not  very  well. 
All  others  very  beany.  Give  my  kindest  regards  to  Mrs. 
Bigelow.  I  wish  you  would  tell  me  what  papers  to  read.  I 
have  Times,  Tribune,  Herald  at  present. 

Yours  ever  very  truly 

Will  there  be  a  compromise? 


370       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 
WILLIAM  H.  RUSSELL  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  Augt.  27,  '61. 

Redde  incolumen  precor! 

My  dear  Bigelow: 

I  'm  not  kilt  yet,  tho '  the  Herald  is  doing  its  best  to  get  me 
assassinated— contempsi  Catilince  gladios,  etc.  No  news  here. 
Nothing  really  doing  of  any  sort.  I  wish  Mrs.  Bigelow 
and  you  a  really  pleasant,  safe  and  happy  voyage— good 
news  whilst  away,  and  a  return  to  a  peaceful  country  and 
home.  The  latter  I  fear  is  little  likely  politically  speaking. 

I  hear  I  'm  the  best  abused  man  in  America—  The  little 
dogs  and  all,  Tray,  Blanche  and  Sweetheart,  see  how  they 
bark  at  me—  Bow  wow  wow  from  the  mouth—  "North  and 
South  shout  in  each  other's  mouth."    Bow  wow  wow  from 
the  Austral  world.    If  I  can't  grin  I  can  bear  it.    Why  I  get 
exactly  the  same  sort  of  language,  minus  the  ruffianly  threats 
and  insults  because  I  told  the  truth  in  the  Crimea  and  in  India. 
And  so  know  that  I  am  adamant— except,  to  pressure  from 
a  friend's  hand,  physically  I  'm  very  soft. 
When  you  left  America  last,  you  left  also 
A  free  Press— Prosperity— A  Constitution—  , 
Habeas  Corpus 
Peace 

I  hope  you  may  come  back  and  find  them.     There  is  now— 
No  freedom  of  the  Press— A  passport  system— Domi 
ciliary  visits— 

Police  surveillance— Fort  Lafayette— a  bastile- 
No  freedom  of  the  person- 
War  calamity  and  distress — 
Irresponsible  Govt.— 
I  hope  you  '11  see  Thackeray  and  Delane. 
I  need  scarcely  say  it  's  not  true  I  have  been  refused  a  pass 
to  go  where  I  pleased— I  have  one. 

Kind  regards,  good  wishes,— and  that  I  may  soon  see  you 
on  my  own  account. 

Sincerely 


XI 

CONSUL  AT  PAEIS 
1861-1864 

IN  the  early  part  of  September,  1861,  the  report  became 
current  in  Paris  that  Garibaldi  had  been  invited  by  our 
Government  to  take  the  supreme  command  of  the  Union 
army.    This  report  was  bread  to  the  imperialistic  journals  in 
Paris.     I  at  once  pronounced  the  report,  in  its  length  and 
breadth,  absurd.    At  the  same  time  I  was  aware  that  Henry  S. 
Sanford,  our  Minister  Resident  at  Brussels,  had  been  down  to 
see  Garibaldi,  and  I  did  not  know  to  what  extent  he  might  have 
contributed  to  the  plausibility  of  this  report. 

A  day  or  two  after  reading  about  it  in  the  Patrie,  I  met  with 
Mr.  Beck  with,  an  old  acquaintance  and  a  brother-in-law  of  the 
late  John  M.  Forbes  of  Boston,  then  residing  in  Paris,  who 
told  me  that  he  had  accompanied  Sanford,  at  his  request,  on 
his  visit  to  Garibaldi,  and  gave  me  a  pretty  full  and,  I  have  no 
doubt,  accurate  account  of  what  occurred.  He  said  in  sub 
stance  that  the  United  States  Consul  at  Antwerp  had  written 
to  Garibaldi  expressing  a  wish  that  he  would  throw  him 
self  into  the  great  struggle  pending  in  America,  and  that 
Garibaldi  had  written  in  reply  that  he  would  be  most  happy  to 
do  so  if  Italy  would  spare  him ;  that  Trechi,  an  intimate  friend 
of  Garibaldi  and  an  officer  in  the  confidence  of  the  King,  took 
a  note  to  Garibaldi  from  Sanford  stating  that  the  United 
States  Government  had  been  gratified  to  learn  that  he  had  ex 
pressed  an  interest  in  the  struggle  between  slavery  and  free 
dom  waging  there,  and  expressing  Sanford 's  wish  to  know 
whether  the  general  was  disposed  to  entertain  a  proposition  to 
enter  our  service.  Trechi  soon  came  back  with  a  rather  pom 
pous  note  addressed  to  the  King,  in  which  Garibaldi  said  in 

371 


372       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

substance,  "The  Americans  desire  me  to  take  command  of 
their  armies ;  does  your  Majesty  need  me  hjere,  or  shall  I  go?" 
etc.  The  King  was  not  pleased  with  the  note ;  said  it  wa"s  im 
possible  to  give  Garibaldi  anything  to  do,  that  he  was  entirely 
impracticable,  did  not  appreciate  the  King's  situation  and 
relations  with  Austria  and  France,  etc.,  and  began  to  dictate 
a  letter  to  Trechi.  He  had  not  dictated  many  lines  before 
Trechi  begged  his  Majesty  to  excuse  him  from  being  the  bearer 
of  such  a  note,  and  advised  his  Majesty  not  to  send  it;  "for," 
said  he, i '  Garibaldi  is  a  power  in  Italy ;  the  Italians  love  him. 
What  you  have  written  would  offend  him  seriously,  and  that 
you  cannot  afford  to  do  at  present. ' '  Finally  the  King  said  he 
would  consult  his  council. 

The  result  was  that  Garibaldi  was  given  to  understand  that 
he  might  go.  "Thereupon,"  Beckwith  continued,  "Sanford 
and  I  went  down  to  Caprera  and  made  the  offer  he  had  been 
authorized  to  make,  a  major-generalship  in  our  army  and  the 
payment  of  the  incidental  expenses  of  transporting  Garibaldi 
and  a  few  of  his  companions  whom  he  might  deem  indispen 
sable.  Garibaldi  rejected  the  proposal ;  said  he  was  good  for 
nothing  to  work  under  any  one  else,  that  he  must  have  the  su 
preme  command,  with  authority  to  proclaim  the  freedom  of  all 
the  blacks  in  the  United  States,  if  on  getting  there  he  should 
think  such  a  step  advisable. ' ' 

Of  course  Sanford  had  to  decline  both  propositions  and  to 
return  to  Brussels  a  little  ashamed  of  the  incident  he  had 
provoked. 

Beckwith  said  Garibaldi  was  poor  but  would  allow  no  one  to 
give  him  money.  He  had  an  insatiable  ambition,  however,  and 
his  exclusion  from  public  life  was  excessively  irksome  to  him. 
He  doubtless  hoped  his  letter  to  the  King  would  have  been  fol 
lowed  by  an  offer  of  some  public  service  in  Italy,  and  was  no 
doubt  greatly  disappointed  by  the  result. 

I  wrote  Mr.  Seward  congratulating  him  that  Sanford 's  mis 
sion  had  proved  abortive,  but  fail  to  find  any  copy  of  my  letter. 

Soon  after  General  Andrew  Jackson  became  President  of 
the  United  States,  he  invited  Francis  P.  Blair,  a  young  man 
then  residing  in  Kentucky,  though  by  birth  a  Virginian,  to 
become  the  editor  of  the  Globe,  a  newspaper  about  to  be  estab 
lished  at  Washington,  to  be  what  was  termed  in  those  days 


FRANCIS  P.  BLAIR  AND  THE   GLOBE  373 

"the  organ "  of  the  Administration.  Mr.  Blair  owed  this  com 
pliment,  it  is  said,  to  an  article  against  the  South  Carolina 
doctrine  of  Nullification,  or  the  right  of  any  State  to  withdraw 
from  the  Union  when  so  disposed,  which  he  published  in  a  Ken 
tucky  newspaper,  and  which  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
President.  The  Globe  began  its%career  in  1830,  and  became  the 
organ  not  only  of  the  Jackson  but  of  successive  Democratic 
administrations  until  the  accession  of  President  Polk,  when  a 
lack  of  harmony  between  his  views  and  those  of  the  Adminis 
tration  led  Mr.  Blair  to  retire  to  his  country  place  at  Silver 
.Spring,  Maryland,  where  he  resided  until  his  death  on  October 
18,  1876.  In  1848  he  supported  Mr.  Van  Buren,  the  candidate 
of  the  Free  Soil  or  antislavery  extension  party,  for  the  Presi 
dency  against  Lewis  Cass,  the  candidate  of  the  Democratic 
party.1  Because  of  his  unequalled  familiarity  with  our  national 
affairs,  his  rare  good  sense,  his  high  personal  character,  his 
courage  and  sterling  patriotism,  he  continued  to  the  day  of  his 
death  to  be  the  political  Nestor  of  every  Administration  in 
Washington,  and  probably  had  more  of  the  confidence  of  Presi 
dent  Lincoln,  and  as  much  influence  in  shaping  his  policy  so 
far  as  that  policy  was  not  misshapen  by  events  over  which  the 
President  had  no  control,  as  any  other  person. 

In  1864  Mr.  Blair  conceived  the  idea  that,  through  his  per 
sonal  acquaintance  with  many  of  the  Confederate  leaders,  he 
might  be  able  to  effect  a  peace.  Without  telling  the  President 
of  his  intention,  he  asked  for  a  pass  to  the  South,  and  had 
several  interviews  with  Jefferson  Davis  and  others.  His 
efforts  finally  led  to  an  unsatisfactory  " peace  conference"  on 
February  3,  1865.  After  Lincoln's  death  Mr.  Blair's  opposi 
tion  to  the  reconstruction  measures  and  to  the  general  policy 
of  the  Republicans  led  to  his  cooperation  with  the  Democratic 
party,  though  his  counsels  were  disregarded  by  its  leaders  till 
1876,  when  Mr.  Tilden  was  nominated  for  the  Presidency.2 

Mr.  Blair  conceived  a  distrust  of  Mr.  Seward,  the  Secretary 
of  State,  at  an  early  stage  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  Administration, 
having  never  sympathized  politically  with  Mr.  Seward,  who, 

1  For  an  explanation  of  the  provocations  for  this  schism  in  the  Democratic 
party,  which  led  to  the  organization  of  the  Republican  party  and  the  abolition 
of  slavery  in  the  United  States,  see  Bigelow's  Life  of  S.  J.  Tilden  (Harper  & 
Brothers). 

3  See  Appleton's  Cyclopedia. 


374       [RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

prior  to  the  formation  of  the  Republican  party,  had  always 
acted  with  the  Whigs.  It  is  rare  that  a  -man  who  has  none  of 
the  responsibilities  of  office,  however  extensive  may  have  been 
his  experience  in  public  affairs,  is  competent  to  appreciate  or 
fairly  to  criticise  the  officer  who  bears  those  responsibilities. 
They  are  not  in  communication  with  the  same  currents  of  in 
formation,  and  therefore  are  always  judging  from  a  different 
state  of  facts.  Hence,  with  the  purest  intentions,  their  liability 
to  disagree.  To  illustrate  this  we  need  go  no  further  back  than 
to  Bismarck's  public  deliverances  after  his  relegation  to  pri 
vate  life,  and  Mr.  Gladstone's  assaults  upon  the  Salisbury 
government  for  declining  to  interfere  by  force  of  arms  be 
tween  the  Sultan  of  Turkey  and  his  Armenian  subjects. 
Neither  was  judging  precisely  the  same  state  of  facts  as  the 
administration  he  criticised  was  dealing  with. 

Lord  Stanhope,  in  his  Life  of  Pitt,  speaking  of  the  embar 
rassments  growing  out  of  Pitt's  consulting  with  Addington 
after  his  retirement  from  office,  makes  this  remark :  ' i  It  seems 
to  me  that  on  this  point  Pitt's  determination  was  perfectly 
right  and  wise.  I  should  say  from  my  observation  of  Politics 
that  a  Statesman  in  Office  can  never  long  continue  to  consult  a 
Statesman  out  of  Office  with  mutual  satisfaction  and  to  the 
public  advantage  except  in  the  single  case  when  the  Statesman 
out  of  Office  has  explicitly  and  finally  renounced  every  idea  of 
himself  returning  to  power."  I  am  not  clear  that  even  the 
exception  here  is  well  taken. 

It  is  doing  no  injustice  to  Mr.  Blair  to  assume  that  in  the 
repose  of  his  easy-chair  he  knew  much  less  of  what  the  Gov 
ernment  could  advantageously  do  toward  suppressing  the 
Rebellion  than  Mr.  Seward,  who  was  in  telegraphic  communica 
tion  with  every  township  in  the  country,  and  in  constant  com 
munication  with  the  chief  representatives  of  every  shade  of 
public  opinion  abroad  as  well  as  at  home.  In  the  distinction 
here  stated  will  be  found  probably  the  best  explanation  that 
can  be  offered  for  much  of  the  censure  passed  upon  Mr.  Sew 
ard  in  the  following  letter.  It  deserves  also  to  be  borne  in 
mind  by  the  reader  that  at  the  writing  of  this  letter  Mr.  Blair 
was  in  his  seventy-first  year. 


F.  P.  BLAIR'S  CRITICISM  OF  SEWARD         375 
FRANCIS  P.  BLAIR  TO  BIGELOW 

SILVEB  SPKING,  26  Oct.  1861. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

As  you  told  me  you  liked,  when  abroad,  to  get  my  views  of 
our  situation,  let  me  begin  with  a  resume. 

Your  friend,  Seward,  has  been  a  nightmare  on  the  adminis 
tration.  Let  me  mark  the  steps  he  has  taken  in  frustration  of 
the  President.  When  the  President  put  his  foot  on  the  car  for 
Washington,  he  announced  his  mission  to  be  the  restoration  of 
the  Govt.,  and  to  retake  all  that  had  been  taken  from  it  by 
secession.  He  had  proclaimed  his  purpose  to  make  Seward 
his  Premier  in  advance ;  and  the  first  step  of  this  Minister  was 
to  prepare  to  frustrate  the  policy  declared  by  the  President. 
In  Weed's  paper,1  in  the  Astor  House  speech— in  a  set  speech 
in  the  Senate,  he  made  compromise  his  counteracting  policy. 
He  proposed  "  concession "  (to  use  his  own  word)  to  the 
Traitors  who  had  taken  up  arms  to  break  down  the  abandoned 
union  and  "offered  the  right  hand  of  fellowship  to  violence/' 
The  Gulf  States  scorned  the  overture.  If  they  had  acceded 
to  it  the  policy  of  Buchanan,  again  dictated  by  the  South, 
would  have  been  renewed  under  Seward— as  the  whole  South, 
holding  its  seats  in  the  Senate  then,  commanded  that  body  in 
cooperation  with  Seward,  it  could  have  dictated  the  Cabinet. 
As  it  was,  this  overture  secured  his  first  point,  the  confirma 
tion  of  his  nomination.  Meantime  the  seizure  of  all  the  unde 
fended  forts  and  property  of  the  Govt.  went  on  in  the  South 
with  orders  to  reduce  the  rest. 

The  administration  was  installed  with  a  reiteration  in  the 
Inaugural  of  the  purpose  to  restore  the  Govt.  in  its  integrity. 
Mr.  Seward  then  opened  a  negotiation  with  the  border  slave 
states  in  direct  repugnance  [thereto].  His  proposal  through 
the  emissaries  of  the  Oct.  Convention  was  the  surrender  of 
Fort  Sumter— a  virtual  surrender  to  the  seceded  states  of  the 
right  they  asserted— in  consideration  of  an  adjournment  of 
that  convention  without  passing  an  ordinance  of  secession ;  the 
object  being  to  prevent  the  immediate  coalition  of  the  border 
1  Albany  Evening  Journal. 


376        KETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

states  with  those  of  the  Gulf.  This  diplomatic  mode  of  pre 
venting  the  march  of  the  revolution,  postponed  all  energetic 
movements  to  stay  it.  Its  active  instruments  gained  time, 
without  obstruction  to  their  belligerent  operations,  &  the  union 
lost  its  great  depots  in  the  South.  The  Norfolk  Navy  yard  and 
its  ships  were  taken  and  Harpers  Ferry,  its  arms  and  ma 
chinery  fell  into  their  hands,  and  the  Capitol— the  Govt.  itself 
—had  well  nigh  fallen  by  these  [illegible]  of  Mr.  Seward's 
compromised  friends.  They  arrested  the  war  entirely  on  our 
side  while  it  was  pushed  rapidly  on  the  other. 

Now  he  has  paralyzed  the  Govt's.  movements  in  the  western 
department,  disconcerted  by  Fremont  in  the  first  instance  and 
at  this  moment  brought  to  a  standstill  by  Seward's  machina 
tions  to  keep  him  in  command.  This  general  has  set  himself 
up  by  a  sort  of  Mexican  pronunciamento—by  Martial  law 
superseding  the  Constitution,  the  law  and  the  President— into 
a  dictatorship  and  has  proclaimed  a  new  political  issue  by 
ignoring  a  private  order  written  to  him  by  the  President  and 
giving  manumitting  papers  to  slaves  in  contravention  of  law 
and  the  President's  instruction.  Besides  his  whole  course  of 
maladministration  in  regard  to  purchase  of  appointments,  set 
ting  at  naught  law  and  military  regulations,  and  his  incapacity 
as  an  officer  evinced  in  the  abandonment  of  Lyons  &  Callogan. 
All  demanding  his  removal  have  been  overruled  by  Seward's 
management  though  thrice  resolved  on  by  the  President,  and 
we  are  now  likely  to  have  the  abolition  phrenzy  on  an  enlarged 
scale,  brought  into  the  conflict  to  divide  us  in  the  North  under 
auspices  of  Fremont  and  Seward.  I  think  Seward's  idea  is 
that  the  now  notorious  incapacity  of  the  former  will  leave  the 
old  rider  of  the  abolition  Hobby  on  his  back  and  master  of  the 
field. 

But  I  write  now  to  bring  to  your  view  another  blunder  of 
the  Premier  from  which  I  hope  you  will  deliver  us  in  France 
where  the  motives  of  it  if  ascribed  to  our  Govt.  or  people  must 
make  a  bad  impression.  The  association  of  the  Bourbon  heirs 
with  the  staff  of  the  commander  of  our  armies  is  an  insult  to 
Louis  Napoleon  both  as  a  man  and  Emperor.  If  it  be  an  ap 
peal  to  his  fears,  thus  setting  up  rivals  and  making  them  part 
of  our  military  forces,  it  shows  a  want  of  respect  in  our  Secre 
tary  for  the  courage  and  genius  of  the  first  man  in  Europe— 
and  it  must  be  offensive  to  the  Emperor,  though  despising  such 


COBDEN  AND  THE   ABOLITION  OF  BLOCKADES  377 

petty  attempts,  to  see  our  liberal  Govt.  lifted  up  to  indepen 
dence  by  the  soldiers  of  France,  giving  place  to  the  outcasts  of 
the  great  nation  which  has  just  given  independence  to  Italy, 
by  discarding  from  that  fair  country  the  remnant  of  the 
despotism  of  the  House  of  Bourbon,  while  we  afford  it  nurture 
here. 

Let  me  assure  you  that  this  act  of  Seward  does  not  corre 
spond  with  the  feeling  of  the  rest  of  the  Cabinet,  of  the 
President,  or  people.  The  country  knows  what  its  liberal  insti 
tutions  and  those  of  the  world  owe  to  the  two  Napoleons.  The 
first  won  the  heart  of  this  country  by  the  battle  which  drove 
Austria  out  of  Italy  and  made  a  Roman  state  at  Marengo.  The 
battle  of  Solferino  was  not  a  less  glorious  blow  for  freedom 
as  felt  by  every  patriotic  American.  In  this  crisis  of  our  fate 
we  turn  our  eyes  to  the  second  Napoleon  to  assist  in  saving 
our  Eepublic  upon  the  same  principle  as  that  by  which  he  has 
established  the  unity  of  Italy.  He  will  baffle  the  machinations 
of  England  as  he  has  baffled  those  of  Austria,  and  the  Ameri 
can  as  well  as  the  Italian  people  will  hail  him  as  the  saviour  of 
popular  sovereignty  in  the  two  hemispheres. 

Give  my  love  to  Mrs.  Bigelow,  and  believe  me, 

Your  most  obedient  servant  and  friend 


EICHAED  COBDEN  TO  BIGELOW 

MIDHUKST,  18  Nov.  1861. 
My  dear  Sir: 

A  dispatch  was  sent  by  General  Cass  to  Mr.  Mason  at  Paris, 
I  think  a  year  or  two  ago,  upon  the  subject  of  Belligerent 
right  in  time  of  war.  A  copy  of  this  dispatch  was  read  by 
Mr.  Dallas  to  Lord  John  Russell,  who  gave  a  quotation  of  it  in 
a  speech  in  the  House  of  Commons,  Feby.  18,  1861  (see 
Hansard). 

As  no  doubt  a  copy  of  this  dispatch  is  in  the  Archives  of  the 
Legation  at  Paris,  my  object  in  writing  is  to  ask  you  whether  I 
could  have  a  copy,— in  confidence  if  such  be  the  understanding. 

I  want  this  document  in  the  interests  of  peace  and  goodwill 


378        RETEOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

between  this  country  and  the  United  States.  Out  of  this  Civil 
war  will  I  hope  rise  a  determination  on  the  part  of  all  the 
Maritime  States  to  adopt  as  the  future  maritime  law  of  the 
world  the  suggestions  which  first  emanated  from  America  for 
abolishing  blockades,  and  exempting  private  property  at  Sea 
from  capture  by  armed  government  vessels. 

I  hope  you  and  Mrs.  Bigelow  are  well.— Pray  tell  her  that  I 
have  an  addition  of  a  daughter  to  my  family  and  that  mother 
and  child  are  doing  well. 

With  our  kindest  regards  to  you  both,  I  remain, 

Yours  truly 


I  should  think  that  young  Mr.  Adams  at  the  American  Mis 
sion  would  be  able  to  find  you  the  document,— he  is  sharp  at 
such  matters.  But  do  not  mention  my  name  in  the  matter, 
excepting  in  quoting  my  quotation  in  Hansard. 


THE  SETZUEE  AND  SUEEENDEE  OF  THE  CONFEDEEATE 
COMMISSIONEES 

A  little  before  midnight  of  Friday,  the  llth  of  October,  1861, 
a  dozen  or  more  ladies  and  gentlemen  were  gathered  together 
upon  the  wharf  in  Charleston  harbor. 

The  night  was  pitchy  dark,  and  it  was  raining  violently.  In 
a  few  minutes  only  after  their  arrival,  the  party  were  seated 
in  a  ship's  pinnace,  till  then  invisible,  that  had  apparently 
been  waiting  for  them  at  a  few  oars '  length  from  the  landing. 
Two  or  three  strokes  of  the  oars  were  heard,  and  the  boat  with 
its  new  burden  was  swallowed  up  in  the  darkness  again. 

The  party  in  the  boat,  who  were  embarking  upon  a  voyage 
which  was  destined  to  make  some  of  them  more  famous  than 
any  other  event  of  their  lives,  consisted  of  James  M.  Mason  of 
Virginia  and  John  Slidell  of  Louisiana,  commissioners  from 
the  ' i  Confederate  States, ' '  the  first  to  England  and  the  second 
to  France;  Mr.  McFarland,  secretary  to  Mr.  Mason;  Mrs. 
Slidell ;  Miss  Matilda  Slidell ;  Miss  Eosina  Slidell ;  Mr.  Eustis, 
who  was  Mr.  Slidell Js  secretary;  Mrs.  Eustis,  a  daughter  of 


CAPTURE  OF  CONFEDERATE  COMMISSIONERS    379 

Mr.  Corcoran,  the  head  of  a  leading  banking  house  in  Wash 
ington,  but  at  that  moment  a  prisoner  in  Fort  Lafayette; 
Colonel  Le  Mat  of  Louisiana,  and  two  or  three  others  of  less 
political  importance  who  were  profiting  by  the  opportunity  to 
find  a  refuge  in  foreign  lands. 

In  a  few  minutes  after  leaving  the  wharf,  the  party  were  on 
board  the  small  steamer  Theodora,  lying  in  wait  for  them  in 
side  the  bar.  By  one  o'clock  her  cables  were  slipped  and  she 
was  gliding  as  noiselessly  and  as  invisibly  as  possible  down 
the  bay.  As  she  passed  Fort  Sumter  the  lights  on  board  were 
darkened,  the  engine  slowed,  and  other  precautions  were  taken 
to  escape  notice,  and  with  entire  success.  She  was  soon  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  glasses  or  the  guns  from  the  fort,  and  on  the 
open  sea. 

On  the  16th  she  arrived  at  Cardenas,  on  the  island  of  Cuba, 
where  the  commissioners  disembarked.  On  the  7th  of  Novem 
ber,  with  their  families  and  secretaries,  they  sailed  from 
Havana  for  Southampton  in  the  British  royal  mail-steamer 
Trent.  About  noon  of  the  following  day,  while  running  the 
narrow  passage  of  the  old  Bahama  Channel,  a  steamer  was 
sighted  from  the  Trent,  directly  in  her  course  and  apparently 
waiting  for  her,  but  showing  no  colors.  On  approaching  her, 
Captain  Moir  of  the  Trent  hoisted  the  British  ensign,  which, 
however,  received  no  attention.  When  the  two  ships  were 
within  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  or  something  less,  the  strange 
vessel  fired  a  shot  across  the  Trent's  bow  and  ran  up  the 
American  flag.  The  Trent,  declining  to  receive  orders  from 
the  stranger  with  or  without  the  American  flag,  held  on  her 
course  and  paid  no  attention  to  the  summons.  As  soon  as  time 
enough  had  elapsed  to  leave  no  doubt  of  her  purpose,  a  'shell 
from  the  American's  forward  deck  burst  about  one  hundred 
yards  in  front  of  the  Trent.  This  was  a  summons  Captain 
Moir  could  not  disregard,  and  the  Trent  was  slowed.  Pres 
ently  a  boat  put  out  from  the  American  vessel  and  boarded  the 
Trent.  The  officer  in  command,  Lieutenant  Fairfax,  asked  for 
a  list  of  her  passengers.  The  captain  refused  to  give  it  or  to 
recognize  the  right  of  the  officer  to  ask  for  it.  Lieutenant 
Fairfax  then  called  out  the  names  of  the  rebel  commissioners 
and  their  secretaries,  and  said  those  were  the  persons  he  was 
in  quest  of ;  that  he  knew  they  were  on  board,  and  his  orders 
were  to  bring  them  away  with  him  at  all  hazards.  Captain 


380        BETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Moir  declined  to  recognize  the  authority  of  the  intruder  to 
meddle  with  his  ship  or  passengers,  and  refused  to  give  up 
the  commissioners. 

Lieutenant  Fairfax  then  said  he  would  be  obliged  to  take 
possession  of  the  ship,  and  thereupon  made  the  appropriate 
signal  to  his  commander.  Without  delay  three  boats,  contain 
ing  thirty  marines  and  about  sixty  sailors  heavily  armed,  put 
out  from  the  American  ship  and  rowed  alongside. 

Seeing  that  further  resistance  would  be  worse  than  fruitless, 
Messrs.  Slidell,  Mason,  Eustis,  and  McFarland,  who  meantime 
had  come  on  deck,  proceeded  to  get  their  personal  baggage  and 
descended  with  it  into  the  boats,  the  ladies  of  the  party  decid 
ing  to  remain  on  board  the  Trent  and  go  on  to  Liverpool.  The 
commissioners  were  taken  to  the  frigate,  which  proved  to  be 
the  San  Jacinto,  under  the  command  of  Captain  Wilkes,  which 
had  just  arrived  from  the  coast  of  Africa  and  was  on  her  way 
to  New  York.  The  commissioners  were  brought  to  New  York, 
and,  by  orders  from  Washington,  placed  in  confinement  in 
Fort  Lafayette.  A  few  days  before  leaving  Charleston  the 
commissioners  addressed  letters  to  E.  M.  T.  Hunter,  then 
Secretary  of  State  of  the  Confederacy,  in  which  they  give  at 
length  some  further  particulars  of  their  departure  and  voyage 
to  Cardenas,  to  which  subsequent  events  have  given  impor 
tance. 

In  the  following  extract  from  Slidell 's  account  of  his  first 
interview  with  the  Emperor  Napoleon  at  Vichy  on  the  16th  of 
July,  1862,  he  gives  some  additional  particulars  of  his  treat 
ment  while  a  prisoner  in  Fort  Warren,  which  I  quote  because 
they  effectually  dispose  of  the  allegation,  quite  current  at  the 
time,  that  the  commissioners  were  rudely  and  discourteously 
treated,  as  criminals  rather  than  as  prisoners  of  war  which 
they  claimed  to  be. 

I  spoke  of  the  submission  of  the  neutral  powers  to  a  blockade  which 
for  more  than  six  months  had  existed  only  on  paper  as  having  in 
flicted  on  us  incalculable  injury;  that  the  submission  to  a  blockade 
not  enforced  in  accordance  with  the  principles  of  international  law 
and  the  fourth  article  of  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  the  voluntary  renuncia 
tion  of  the  right  to  trade  with  ports  not  really  blockaded,  were  in  fact 
a  violation  of  the  neutrality  which  the  European  powers  professed 


SLIDELL  AT  THE  EAR  OF  THE  EMPEROR      381 

to  observe,  and  that  we  were  especially  disappointed  that  France,  who 
had  always  championed  neutral  rights,  should  for  the  first  time  have 
failed  to  assert  them. 

The  Emperor  said  that  he  had  committed  a  great  error  which  he 
now  deeply  regretted.  France  should  never  have  respected  the 
blockade;  that  the  European  powers  should  have  recognized  us  last 
summer,  when  our  ports  were  in  our  possession  and  when  we  were 
menacing  Washington.  "But  what/'  he  asked,  "can  now  be  done? 
To  open  the  ports  forcibly  would  be  an  act  of  war;  mediation  if 
offered  would  be  refused,  and  probably  in  insulting  terms,  by  the 
North,  and  mere  recognition,  while  of  little  advantage  to  you,  would 
probably  involve  us  in  a  war. ' ' 

To  this  I  replied  that  a  large  portion  of  our  coast  was  not  even  now 
effectually  blockaded ;  vessels  were  constantly  arriving  at  and  depart 
ing  from  Charleston,  Wilmington  and  other  small  ports.  These  might 
be  declared  open,  and  the  declaration,  if  necessary,  enforced  by  arms. 
The  Northern  Government  would  bully  and  menace,  but  experience 
had  fully  shown  what  value  should  be  placed  on  their  threats. 

They  had  first  instructed  their  ministers  to  say  that  our  simple 
recognition  as  belligerents  would  be  considered  as  an  act  of  hostility ; 
that  we  had  been  so  recognized;  then  that  any  communication  with 
our  agents,  even  unofficial,  would  be  considered  and  followed  by  the 
like  consequences ;  that  our  privateersmen  should  be  hanged  as  pirates ; 
they  had  threatened  Holland  with  war  because  she  had  permitted  the 
Sumter  to  take  supplies  of  provisions  and  coal  in  her  ports;  yet  in 
all  these  instances  and  many  others  that  could  be  cited,  finding  that 
their  menaces  had  been  disregarded,  or,  as  in  the  case  of  the  privateers, 
retaliatory  measures  would  be  adopted  by  the  Confederate  States, 
they  had,  with  bad  grace  it  is  true,  but  very  quietly,  abandoned 
their  absurd  and  insolent  pretensions.  The  last  and  crowning  in 
stance  of  loud  boasting  and  ignominious  backing  out  was  the  affair  of 
the  Trent.  The  commander  of  the  San  Jacinto  had  been  feted,  wher 
ever  he  went,  as  a  conqueror ;  his  journey  from  his  landing  at  Boston1 
to  his  arrival  at  Washington  was  one  continual  ovation ;  the  Secretary 
of  the  Navy  officially  endorsed  his  action;  the  House  of  Representa 
tives  voted  him  a  sword  by  acclamation ;  the  President  and  his  Cabinet 
openly  declared  that  the  prisoners  should  never  be  surrendered,  and 
the  entire  press  without  exception  denounced  as  cowards  and  traitors 
all  who  ventured  even  to  hint  that  the  seizure  was  illegal.  Yet  they 
had  succumbed  so  soon  as  the  peremptory  demand  to  give  up  the 
prisoners  was  made  by  England,  backed  by  the  significant  letter  of 
M.  Thouvenel. 

1  Whence  the  prisoners  had  been  transferred  by  orders  from  Washington. 


382        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

The  Emperor  asked  me  how  I  had  been  treated  while  a  prisoner. 
I  answered:  not  discourteously,  but  that  we  had  been  very  indifferently 
lodged  at  Fort  Warren.  His  Majesty  occupies,  by  the  way,  a  small 
house  at  Vichy,  and  received  me  in  his  only  " salon"  there  and  one 
of  very  modest  proportions.  I  told  him  that  we  were  four  prisoners 
in  a  room  about  one-fourth  dimensions  of  the  one  in  which  we  were 
sitting,  which  served  us  for  bedroom,  saloon,  and  dining-room,  at  Fort 
Warren,  but  that  fortunately  we  had  found  there  a  very  agreeable 
mess  established  in  a  kitchen.  I  took  this  occasion  to  say  that  I  re 
gretted  not  to  have  had  an  earlier  opportunity  of  presenting,  on 
behalf  of  my  wife  and  children,  my  thanks  for  his  friendly  interposi 
tion  to  which  I  mainly  attributed  my  release,  but  that  I  had  always 
regretted  it,  because  if  we  had  not  been  given  up  it  would  have 
caused  a  war  with  England,  which  would  have  been  of  short  duration, 
and,  whatever  might  have  happened  to  myself,  the  result  must  have 
been  advantageous  to  our  cause.  The  Emperor  said  that  he  thought 
I  was  right;  that  he  regretted  to  say  that  England  had  not  appre 
ciated  his  friendly  action  in  the  affair  of  the  Trent;  that  there  were 
many  reasons  why  he  wished  to  be  on  the  best  terms  with  her,  but  that 
the  policy  of  nations  necessarily  changed  with  circumstances,  and 
that  he  was  consequently  obliged  to  look  forward  to  the  possible  con 
tingency  of  not  having  always  the  same  friendly  relations  as  now 
existed. 


LOKD   LYONS,   BEITISH   MINISTER   AT   WASHINGTON,   TO   EARL 
RUSSELL,  BRITISH  MINISTER  OF  FOREIGN  AFFAIRS 

WASHINGTON,  November  19,  1861. 
My  Lord: 

I  have  already  informed  your  lordship  by  telegraph  that  Mr.  Mason 
and  Mr.  Slidell,  who  are  believed  to  have  been  on  their  way  to  Eng 
land  and  France  as  commissioners  from  the  so-called  Confederate 
Government,  were  taken  by  force  out  of  the  British  mail-packet  Trent 
by  the  U.  S.  ship  San  Jacinto  in  the  Bahama  Channel  and  brought 
to  this  country  as  prisoners. 

The  copious  extracts  from  American  newspapers  which  I  have 
the  honor  to  inclose1  will  make  your  lordship  acquainted  with  such 
particulars  concerning  this  unfortunate  affair  as  have  transpired  here. 
They  will  also  convey  to  you  a  tolerably  correct  idea  of  the  impres 
sion  which  it  has  made  upon  the  American  public.  The  evidence  of 

1  Not  found. 


LORD  LYONS'S  REPORT  TO  EARL  RUSSELL      383 

the  English  witnesses  on  board  the  Trent  will  probably  reach  London 
about  the  same  time  as  the  present  dispatch.  Without  a  knowledge  of 
that  evidence  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  form  any  correct  opinion  of  the 
character  of  the  transaction.  I  have  accordingly  deemed  it  right  to 
maintain  the  most  complete  reserve  on  the  subject.  To  conceal  the 
distress  which  I  feel  would  be  impossible  nor  would  it  if  possible  be 
desirable;  but  I  have  expressed  no  opinion  on  the  questions  of  inter 
national  law  involved ;  I  have  hazarded  no  conjecture  as  to  the  course 
which  will  be  taken  by  her  Majesty's  Government.  On  the  one  hand 
I  dare  not  run  the  risk  of  compromising  the  honor  and  inviolability  of 
the  British  flag  by  asking  for  a  measure  of  reparation  which  may 
prove  to  be  inadequate.  On  the  other  hand  I  am  scarcely  less  un 
willing  to  incur  the  danger  of  rendering  a  satisfactory  settlement 
of  the  question  more  difficult  by  making  a  demand  which  may  turn 
out  to  be  unnecessarily  great. 

In  the  present  imperfect  state  of  my  information  I  feel  that  the 
only  proper  and  prudent  course  is  to  wait  for  the  orders  which  your 
lordship  will  give  with  a  complete  knowledge  of  the  whole  case.  I 
am  unwilling  moreover  to  deprive  any  explanation  or  reparation  which 
the  United  States  Government  may  think  it  right  to  offer  of  the  grace 
of  being  made  spontaneously.  I  know  too  that  a  demand  from  me 
would  very  much  increase  the  main  difficulty  which  the  Government 
would  feel  in  yielding  to  any  disposition  which  they  may  have  to 
make  amends  to  Great  Britain.  The  American  people  would  more 
easily  tolerate  a  spontaneous  offer  of  reparation  made  by  its  Gov 
ernment  from  a  spnse  of  justice  than  a  compliance  with  a  demand 
for  satisfaction  from  a  foreign  minister. 

I  have,  &c. 


The  effect  of  this  " outrage  upon  the  British  flag,"  as  it- was 
the  fashion  to  term  it,  was  startling.  It  absorbed  the  con 
versation  of  the  drawing-room  and  the  council-chamber,  and 
was  a  subject  of  fierce  debate  in  every  college  club  and  palace 
of  several  continents. 

Immediately  upon  the  receipt  of  the  news  at  the  Admiralty, 
a  Cabinet  council  was  summoned  by  Lord  Palmerston  to  deter 
mine  whether  Mr.  Adams's  passport  should  not  be  sent  to  him. 
To  the  rebels  and  their  sympathizing  partisans  in  Europe  the 
news  gave  infinite  delight,  for  they  assumed  that  Captain 
Wilkes  had  not  acted  without  the  sanction  of  his  Government. 
They  hoped  and  believed  England  had  received  an  insult  to 


384        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

which  she  could  not  submit;  that  the  United  States  would 
never  make  the  only  reparation  possible  that  would  be  satis 
factory—the  surrender  of  the  commissioners ;  and,  finally,  that 
a  war  between  the  two  countries  must  ensue,  that  England 
would  be  obliged  to  help  fight  the  battle  and  thus  help  estab 
lish  the  independence  of  the  Confederate  States. 

The  loyal  Americans  in  Europe  were  filled  with  concern, 
for  this  event  seemed  to  have  deprived  them  of  the  few  friends 
in  the  press  and  in  public  life  that  had  not  already  abandoned 
the  Union  cause.  The  Tory  press  of  London  were  of  course 
anxious  to  make  the  most  of  their  grievance.  The  Morning 
Herald  trusted  i  l  there  would  be  no  delay  in  avenging  an  out 
rage  unprecedented  even  in  American  lawlessness. "  The 
Post,  which  was  reputed  to  reflect  the  policies  of  Lord  Palmer- 
ston,  said : 1 1  The  insult  was  most  gratuitous ;  was  unwarranted 
by  the  code  of  nations ;  was  not  only  to  be  duly  felt  but  deeply 
resented."  The  London  Daily  News,  which  had  been  neutral 
at  least,  if  not  friendly  to  the  Unionists,  for  a  few  days  lost  its 
balance  and  scolded  us  very  sharply. 

The  only  journals  in  England  that  refused  to  join  in  this  cry 
were  two  papers  established  by  the  political  friends  of  Mr. 
Bright,  one  in  London  and  one  in  Manchester,  and  which  the 
Morning  Herald  signalized  for  public  execration  in  an  edi 
torial  article  commencing  as  follows:  "With  two  exceptions 
which  together  constitute  but  one,  all  the  morning  journals  of 
London  and  of  the  country  are  unanimous  in  their  expressions 
of  disgust  and  indignation  at  the  American  outrage.  Mr. 
Bright  by  his  London  and  Manchester  organs  stands  forth  in 
opposition  to  the  honor  and  the  universal  feeling  of  his  coun 
try:  now,  as  ever,  hateful  in  the  eyes  of  all  educated  and 
thoughtful  men;  now,  as  ever  before,  the  object  of  the  scorn 
and  reprobation  of  all  Englishmen. ' ' 

The  French  press  naturally  took  a  somewhat  more  dispas 
sionate  view  of  the  seizure,  not  being  directly  interested.  Be 
sides,  the  French  people  are  wont  to  contemplate  with 
Christian  composure  any  event  which  promises  to  embroil 
their  insular  neighbors  with  foreign  powers  and  at  this  time 
especially  with  America.  Besides,  in  Paris  as  in  London,  those 
who  for  any  one  of  manifold  reasons  desired  the  success  of  the 
Confederates  rejoiced  over  the  seizure  of  the  commissioners 
and  sought  to  give  the  grievance  great  international  importance. 

Our  political  friends  among  the  French  people  were  thor- 


INTERVIEW  WITH  GARNIER-PAGES  385 

oughly  demoralized.  They  took  it  for  granted  that  Captain 
Wilkes  had  acted  under  orders ;  that  we  could  not  recede ;  and 
that  England  would  become  the  active  instead  of,  what  she  had 
till  then  seemed,  to  some  of  us  at  least,  to  have  been,  the  pas 
sive  ally  of  the  Confederates.  They  did  not  see  how  it  was 
possible  for  them  to  defend  the  act  in  the  press  or  in  the 
Chambers.  There  was  a  time  within  the  three  clays  which  im 
mediately  followed  the  news  of  the  seizure  when  one  could 
have  counted  on  his  fingers  about  all  the  people  in  Europe  not 
Americans  who  still  retained  any  hope  or  expectation  of  the 
perpetuity  of  our  Union.  They  took  it  for  granted  that  we 
would  fight  until  we  were  satisfied  that  there  was  no  use  of 
fighting  longer,  and  then  we  would  agree  to  some  terms  of 
separation.  All  faith  in  our  final  success  was  practically  ex 
tinguished. 

It  was  all  the  more  trying  a  moment  for  loyal  Americans, 
and  especially  for  Federal  officials  in  Europe,  that  we  had  no 
transatlantic  telegraph  in  those  days,  nor  had  we  any  official 
information  as  yet  of  the  relations  which  the  Washington  Gov 
ernment  sustained  to  Commander  Wilkes 's  adventure.  And 
yet  we  were  expected  to  encourage  and  strengthen  our  friends 
to  the  best  of  our  ability  until  we  could  be  reinforced  from 
home. 

A  day  or  two  after  the  news  reached  Paris,  I  called  upon  the 
venerable  Garnier-Pages  about  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
M.  Pages  had  been  a  member  of  the  provisional  government 
under  Lamartine  in  1848,  and  was  now  again  one  of  the  half- 
dozen  Republican  members  of  the  Corps  Legislatif  under  the 
Second  Empire.  I  had  known  him  since  1859,  when  I  was  pre 
sented  to  him  by  the  late  Robert  Walsh  of  Philadelphia  tvhile 
Consul  in  Paris.  He  was  now  as  then  an  ardent  Republican 
and  a  stalwart  friend  of  the  Union  cause,  partly  because  of  his 
aversion  to  slavery,  partly  because  of  his  aversion  to  the 
Imperial  Government,  which  was  suspected  of  inclining  to  the 
rebels,  and  partly  because  he  believed  that  the  future  of  repub 
licanism  in  Europe  depended  upon  the  success  of  republican 
ism  in  America.. 

I  founJ  him  very  much  disturbed  and  already  looking  upon 
disunion  and  its  consequences  as  inevitable  in  the  near  future. 

I  felt  that  it  would  never  do  for  a  person  of  his  age,  activity 
and  zeal  to  be  allowed  to  go  up  and  down  among  the  Repub 
licans  of  Paris  in  the  frame  of  mind  in  which  I  found  him.  I 


386        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

immediately  proceeded  to  state  as  well  as  I  could  all  the 
reasons  that  occurred  to  me  for  refusing  to  regard  the  seizure 
of  the  commissioners  as  an  event  likely  to  have  a  serious  or 
permanent  influence  upon  the  war. 

My  talk  occupied  about  twenty  minutes.  "When  I  had  done 
he  said :  "Why  won't  you  sit  down  and  write  out  just  what  you 
have  said  to  me,  and  publish  it  over  your  own  signature  to 
morrow  morning?  It  would  have  a  very  reassuring  effect  and 
would  afford  as  substantial  comfort  to  others  as"  (he  was 
pleased  to  say)  ' i  it  has  afforded  to  myself. ' ' 

I  replied  to  him  that,  by  the  rules  of  our  service,  I  was  not 
allowed  to  correspond  with  the  public  through  the  newspa 
pers  ;  but,  as  he  attached  so  much  importance  to  an  authorita 
tive  statement  of  the  kind  I  had  made  to  him,  I  promised  to 
lose  no  time  in  finding  some  suitable  person  to  make  it.  Gen 
eral  Winfield  Scott,  who  had  just  been  relieved  from  the 
duties  of  Commander-in-chief  of  the  Union  armies,  had  ar 
rived  in  Paris  only  the  day  before.  It  occurred  to  me  at  once 
that  Scott  was  the  person  to  make  the  statement,  and  Mr. 
Thurlow  Weed,  who  was  also  then  in  Paris  and  an  intimate 
friend  of  the  general,  was  the  most  immediately  available  per 
son  to  prepare  the  general's  mind  for  it.  I  immediately  re 
paired  to  Mr.  Weed's  hotel,  a  few  blocks  off,  related  to  him 
briefly  what  had  occurred,  and  asked  him  if  he  thought  General 
Scott  would  be  willing  to  publish  such  a  statement  as  was 
called  for.  Mr.  Weed  said  he  did  not  doubt  but  he  would  not 
only  be  willing  but  well  pleased  to  do  it.  It  was  then  arranged 
between  us  that  he  should  go  to  the  general 's  hotel  and  secure 
his  consent,  while  I  should  repair  to  my  office  and  prepare  the 
statement  he  was  to  sign,  in  case  he  might  shrink  from  the 
task  of  preparing  such  a  statement  himself.  In  the  course  of 
an  hour  or  so  Mr.  Weed  rejoined  me  at  my  office  and  said  the 
general  thought  well  of  my  suggestion  and  would  receive  me  at 
his  rooms  at  2  P.M.  At  the  hour  appointed  I  repaired  to  Gen 
eral  Scott's  apartment  in  the  Hotel  Westminster,  and  read  to 
him  the  letter  which  in  the  meantime  I  had  prepared.  Know 
ing  as  I  did  that  the  general  had  no  mean  opinion  of  his  skill 
in  the  use  of  the  English  language,  I  felt  some  hesitation  in 
reading  it  to  him,  and  was  immensely  relieved  when  he  signed 
it  without  altering  a  word  or  suggesting  a  modification. 

The  letter  ran  as  follows : 


A  PLEA  FOR  THE  WASHINGTON  GOVERNMENT     387 


GENERAL  WINFIELD  SCOTT  TO  A  FEIEND 

My  dear  Sir: 

You  were  right  in  doubting  the  declaration  imputed  to  me  that  the 
Cabinet  at  Washington  had  given  orders  to  seize  Messrs.  Mason  and 
Slidell,  even  under  a  neutral  flag,  for  I  am  not  aware  that  the  Gov 
ernment  has  ever  had  that  point  under  consideration.  At  the  time 
of  my  leaving  New  York  it  was  not  known  that  the  San  Jacinto  had 
returned  to  the  American  seas;  and  it  was  generally  supposed  that 
those  persons  had  escaped  to  Cuba  for  the  purpose  of  reembarking  in 
the  Nashville,  in  pursuit  of  which  vessel  the  James  Adger  and  other 
cruisers  had  been  dispatched. 

I  think  I  can  satisfy  you  in  a  few  words  that  you  have  no  serious 
grounds  for  concern  about  our  relations  with  England,  if,  as  her 
rulers  profess,  she  has  no  disposition  to  encourage  the  dissensions  in 
America. 

In  the  first  place,  it  must  be  superfluous  to  say  to  you  that  every 
instinct  of  prudence  as  well  as  of  good  neighborhood  prompts  our 
Government  to  regard  no  honorable  sacrifice  too  great  for  the  pres 
ervation  of  the  friendship  of  Great  Britain.  This  must  be  obvious 
to  all  the  world.  At  no  period  of  our  history  has  her  friendship 
been  of  more  importance  to  our  people;  at  no  period  has  our  Gov 
ernment  been  in  a  condition  to  make  greater  concessions  to  preserve 
it.  The  two  nations  are  united  by  interests  and  sympathies — com 
mercial,  social,  political  and  religious— almost  as  the  two  arms  to  one 
body,  and  no  one  is  so  ignorant  as  not  to  know  that  what  harms  one 
must  harm  the  other  in  a  corresponding  degree. 

I  am  persuaded  that  the  British  Government  can  entertain  no  doubt 
upon  the  point ;  but  if  it  does,  I  feel  that  I  may  take  it  upon  myself  to 
say  that  the  President  of  the  United  States,  when  made  aware*  of  its 
existence,  will  lose  no  opportunity  of  dispelling  it. 

Nor  is  there  anything,  I  venture  to  affirm,  in  the  seizure  of  these 
rebel  emissaries  which  ought  to  receive  an  unfriendly  construction 
from  England.  Her  statesmen  will  not  question  the  legal  right  of  an 
American  vessel  of  war  to  search  any  commercial  vessel  suspected  of 
transporting  contraband  of  war ;  that  right  has  never  been  surrendered 
by  England;  it  was  even  guaranteed  to  her  by  the  Treaty  of  Paris; 
and  British  guns  frowning  down  upon  nearly  every  strait  and  inland 
sea  upon  the  globe,  are  conclusive  evidence  that  she  regards,  this  right 
as  one  the  efficiency  of  which  may  be  not  yet  entirely  exhausted. 

Of  course  there  is  much  that  is  irritating  and  vexatious  in  the  exer 
cise  of  this  right,  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances;  and  it  is 
to  be  hoped  the  day  is  not  distant  when  the  maritime  states  of  the 


388        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

world  will  agree  in  placing  neutral  commerce  beyond  the  reach  of 
such  vexations.  The  United  States  Government  has  been  striving  to 
this  end  for  more  than  fifty  years;  to  this  end  early  in  the  present 
century,  and  in  its  infancy  as  a  nation,  it  embarked  in  a  war  with 
the  greatest  naval  power  in  the  world ;  and  it  is  even  now  a  persistent 
suitor  at  every  maritime  court  in  Europe  for  a  more  liberal  recognition 
of  the  rights  of  neutral  commerce  than  any  other  great  maritime 
nations  have  yet  been  disposed  to  make. 

But  till  those  rights  are  secured  by  proper  international  guaranties 
upon  a  comprehensive  and  enduring  basis,  of  course  England  cannot 
complain  of  an  act  for  which,  in  all  its  material  bearings,  her  own 
naval  history  affords  such  numerous  precedents. 

Whether  the  captives  from  the  Trent  were  contraband  of  war  or  not, 
is  a  question  which  the  two  governments  can  have  no  serious  difficulty 
in  agreeing  upon.  If  Mr.  Seward  cannot  satisfy  Earl  Russell  that 
they  were,  I  have  no  doubt  that  Earl  Russell  will  be  able  to  satisfy 
Mr.  Seward  that  they  were  not.  If  they  were,  as  all  authorities  con 
cur  in  admitting,  agents  of  the  Rebellion,  it  will  be  difficult  to  satisfy 
impartial  minds  that  they  were  any  less  contraband  than  a  file  of 
rebel  soldiers  or  a  battery  of  hostile  cannon. 

But  even  should  there  be  a  difference  of  opinion  upon  this  point, 
it  is  very  clear  that  our  Government  had  sufficient  grounds  for  pre 
suming  itself  in  the  right,  to  escape  the  suspicion  of  having  wantonly 
violated  the  relations  of  amity  which  the  two  countries  profess  a  desire 
to  preserve  and  cultivate. 

The  pretence  that  we  ought  to  have  taken  the  Trent  into  port  and 
had  her  condemned  by  a  prize  court,  in  order  to  justify  our  seizure 
of  four  of  her  passengers,  furnishes  a  very  narrow  basis  on  which  to 
fix  a  serious  controversy  between  two  great  nations.  Stated  in  other 
words,  our  offence  had  been  less  if  it  had  been  greater.  The  wrong 
done  to  the  British  flag  would  have  been  mitigated,  if,  instead  of  seiz 
ing  the  four  rebels,  we  had  seized  the  ship,  detained  all  her  passengers 
for  weeks,  and  confiscated  her  cargo.  I  am  not  surprised  that  Captain 
Wilkes  took  a  different  view  of  his  duty,  and  of  what  was  due  to  the 
friendly  relations  which  subsisted  between  the  two  governments.  The 
renowned  common  sense  of  the  English  people,  I  believe,  will  ulti 
mately  approve  of  his  effort  to  make  the  discharge  of  a  very  unpleasant 
duty  as  little  vexatious  as  possible  to  all  innocent  parties. 

If  under  these  circumstances  England  should  deem  it  her  duty, 
in  the  interest  of  civilization,  to  insist  upon  the  restoration  of  the 
men  taken  from  under  the  protection  of  her  flag,  it  will  be  from  a 
conviction,  without  doubt,  that  the  law  of  nations  in  regard  to  the 
rights  of  neutrals,  which  she  has  taken  a  leading  part  in  establishing, 
requires  revision,  and  with  a  suitable  disposition  on  her  part  to  estab 
lish  those  rights  upon  a  just,  humane  and  philosophic  basis.  Indeed, 


A.D.  1786 


General  Winfield  Scott 


A.D.  1866 


A  PLEA  FOR  THE  WASHINGTON  GOVERNMENT     389 

I  am  happy  to  see  an  intimation  in  one  of  her  leading  metropolitan 
journals  which  goes  far  to  justify  this  inference.  Referring  to  the 
decisions  of  the  English  Admiralty  Courts,  now  quoted  in  defence  of 
the  seizure  of  the  rebels  on  board  the  Trent,  the  London  Times  of  the 
28th  November  says : 

"So  far  as  the  authorities  go,  the  testimony  of  international  law 
writers  is  all  one  way— that  a  belligerent  war  cruiser  has  the  right 
to  stop  and  visit  and  search  any  merchant  ship  upon  the  high  seas. 
.  .  .  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  these  decisions  were  given  under 
circumstances  very  different  from  those  which  now  occur.  Steamers 
in  those  days  did  not  exist,  and  mail-vessels  carrying  letters,  wherein 
all  the  nations  of  the  world  have  immediate  interest,  were  unknown. 
We  were  fighting  for  existence,  and  we  did  in  those  days  what  we 
should'  neither  do  nor  allow  others  to  do,  nor  expect  ourselves  to  be 
allowed  to  do,  in  these  days." 

If  England,  as  we  are  here  encouraged  to  hope,  is  disposed  to  do  her 
part  in  stripping  war  of  half  its  horrors,  by  accepting  the  policy  long 
and  persistently  urged  upon  her  by  our  Government,  and  commended 
by  every  principle  of  justice  and  humanity,  she  will  find  no  ground 
in  the  visit  of  the  Trent  for  controversy  with  our  Government.  I  am 
sure  the  President  and  people  of  the  United  States  would  be  but  too 
happy  to  let  these  men  go  free,  unnatural  and  unpardonable  as  their 
offences  have  been,  if  by  it  they  could  emancipate  the  commerce  of  the 
world.  Greatly  as  it  would  be  to  our  disadvantage  at  this  present 
crisis  to  surrender  any  of  those  maritime  privileges  of  belligerents 
which  are  still  sanctioned  by  the  laws  of  nations,  I  feel  that  I  take  no 
responsibility  in  saying  that  the  United  States  will  be  faithful  to  her 
traditional  policy  upon  this  subject,  and  to  the  spirit  of  her  political 
institutions. 

On  the  other  hand,  should  England  be  unprepared  to  make  a  cor 
responding  sacrifice;  should  she  feel  that  she  could  not  yet  afford  to 
surrender  the  advantages  which  the  present  maritime  code  gives  to 
a  dominant  naval  power,  of  course  she  will  not  put  herself  in  a  false 
position  by  asking  us  to  do  it.  In  either  case,  therefore,  I  do  not  see 
how  the  friendly  relations  of  the  two  governments  are  in  any  im 
mediate  danger  of  being  disturbed. 

That  the  overprompt  recognition,  as  belligerents,  of  a  body  of  men 
—however  large,  so  long  as  they  constituted  a  manifest  minority  of 
the  nation— wounded  the  feelings  of  my  countrymen  deeply,  I  will 
not  affect  to  deny;  nor  that  that  act  with  some  of  its  logical  conse 
quences,  which  have  already  occurred,  has  planted  in  the  breasts  of 
many  the  suspicion  that  their  kindred  in  England  wish  them  evil 
rather  than  good;  but  the  statesmen  to  whom  the  political  interests 
of  these  two  great  people  are  confided,  act  upon  higher  responsibilities 
and  with  better  lights,  and  you  may  rest  assured  that  an  event  so 


390        KETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

mutually  disastrous  as  a  war  between  England  and  America  cannot 
occur  without  other  and  graver  provocation  than  has  yet  been  given  by 
either  nation. 

WINFIELD  SCOTT. 

HOTEL  WESTMINSTER,  PARIS, 
December  2,  1861. 


The  very  day  the  letter  of  General  Scott  appeared  in  the 
morning  papers  of  Paris,  the  following  dispatch,  by  a  curious 
coincidence  bearing  the  same  date,  whenever  written,  was  ad 
dressed  by  M.  Thouvenel,  the  French  Minister  of  Foreign 
Affairs,1  to  his  Minister  Plenipotentiary,  M.  Mercier,  in  Wash 
ington  : 


THOUVENEL    TO  MERCIER 

Translation 

PARIS,  December  3,  1861. 

HENRI  MERCIER,  Minister  of  the  Emperor  at  Washington. 

Sir: 

The  arrest  of  Messrs.  Mason  and  Slidell  on  board  the  English 
packet  Trent  by  an  American  cruiser  has  produced  in  France,  if  not 
the  same  emotion  as  in  England,  at  least  extreme  astonishment  and 
sensation.  Public  sentiment  was  at  once  engrossed  with  the  unlawful 
ness  and  the  consequence  of  such  an  act,  and  the  impression  which 
has  resulted  from  this  has  not  been  for  an  instant  doubtful. 

The  fact  has  appeared  so  much  out  of  accordance  with  the  ordinary 
rules  of  international  law  that  it  has  chosen  to  throw  the  respon 
sibility  for  it  exclusively  on  the  commander  of  the  San  Jacinto.  It 
is  not  yet  given  to  us  to  know  whether  this  supposition  is  well  founded ; 
and  the  Government  of  the  Emperor  has  therefore  also  had  to  examine 
the  question  raised  by  the  taking  away  of  the  two  passengers  from 
the  Trent.  The  desire  to  contribute  to  prevent  a  conflict  perhaps 
imminent  between  the  two  powers,  for  which  it  is  animated  by  senti 
ments  equally  friendly,  and  the  duty  to  uphold,  for  the  purpose  of 

1  Appointed  by  the  Emperor  shortly  after  the  coup  d'etat  of  the  2d  of  De 
cember,  1851.  He  had  previously  represented  France  in  Greece  and  in  Bavaria. 


THE  EMPEROR'S  VIEW  OF  THE  TRENT  AFFAIR    391 

placing  the  rights  of  its  own  flag  under  shelter  from  any  attack,  cer 
tain  principles  essential  to  the  security  of  neutrals,  have,  after  mature 
reflection,  convinced  it  that  it  could  not  under  the  circumstances  re 
main  entirely  silent. 

If,  to  our  deep  regret,  the  Cabinet  at  Washington  were  disposed 
to  approve  the  conduct  of  the  commander  of  the  San  Jacinto,  it  would 
be  either  by  considering  Messrs.  Mason  and  Slidell  as  enemies  or  as 
seeing  in  them  nothing  but  rebels.  In  the  one  case  as  in  the  other  case 
there  would  be  a  forgetfulness,  extremely  annoying,  of  principles 
upon  which  we  have  always  found  the  United  States  in  agreement 
with  us. 

For  ourselves,  we  should  see  in  that  fact  a  deplorable  complication 
in  every  respect  of  the  difficulties  with  which  the  Cabinet  at  Wash 
ington  has  already  to  struggle,  and  a  precedent  of  a  nature  seriously 
to  disquiet  all  the  powers  which  continue  outside  of  the  existing  con 
test.  We  believe  that  we  give  evidence  of  loyal  friendship  for  the 
Cabinet  at  Washington  by  not  permitting  it  to  remain  in  ignorance, 
in  this  condition  of  things,  of  our  manner  of  regarding  it.  I  request 
you  therefore,  sir,  to  seize  the  first  occasion  of  opening  yourself 
frankly  to  Mr.  Seward,  and  if  he  asks  it  send  him  a  copy  of  this 
dispatch. 

Receive,  sir,  the  assurance  of  my  high  consideration. 


On  the  28th  of  November,  and  five  days  before  the  preceding 
letter  was  posted  to  Mercier,  Thouvenel  thus  wrote  to  the 
Comte  de  Flahault,  French  Ambassador  in  London : 


Everything  disappears  before  the  great  incident  which  has  arisen 
in  the  relations  of  the  United  States  with  England.  To  know  if  we 
shall  have  to  fill,  as  a  power  interested  in  safeguarding  the  privileges 
of  neutrals,  a  direct  and  active  part,  it  is  indispensable  to  know 
how  the  advocates  of  the  Crown  and  the  English  Government  regard 
the  diverse  questions  implied  in  the  seizure  of  the  Trent,  no  less  than 
in  the  capture  of  the  Confederate  Envoys.  In  any  case  and  should  it 
concern  us  in  consequence  of  the  opposition  of  our  doctrines  on  the 
extent  of  the  right  of  "visit"  and  the  definition  of  objects  contra 
band  of  war  rather  than  of  an  insult  to  the  British  Flag,  do  not  leave 
any  doubt  of  our  sentiments  on  the  subject. 


392        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

In  sentiment  as  well  as  in  form  we  find  the  Americans  in  the  wrong, 
and  our  opinion  boldly  expressed  through  our  Minister  at  Washing 
ton,  to  whom  I  will  write  about  it  on  Thursday  next,  will  morally 
second  the  action  of  Lord  Lyons. 


On  the  12th  of  December  M.  Thouvenel  writes  again  to  the 
Comte  de  Flahault: 


I  am  charmed  with  the  good  effect  which  my  dispatch  to  M.  Mercier 
has  produced  on  Lord  Palmerston  and  Lord  Russell.  So  long  as  we 
have  no  message  from  President  Lincoln  it  would  be  rash  and  idle 
to  indulge  in  conjectures,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  there  is  a  pacific 
current  in  the  air  and  that  the  English  and  the  Americans,  who  are 
good  calculators,  will  think  twice  before  fighting.  General  Scott,  who 
was  to  have  passed  a  part  of  the  winter  here,  has  left  in  haste  for 
Washington  to  support,  with  his  authority,  conciliatory  ideas.  I  have 
spoken  very  strongly  to  the  Minister  of  the  United  States  (Mr.  Day 
ton)  in  the  sense  of  my  dispatch,  and  he  has  promised  faithfully  to 
report  my  conversation  through  Mr.  Seward.1 


Viel-Castel,  one  of  the  familiars  of  the  court,  in  his  "Me- 
moires,"  speaking  of  the  war  anticipated  between  the  United 
States  and  England  from  the  capture  of  the  Confederate  com 
missioners,  gives  the  impression  which  prevailed  at  the 
Tuileries,  when  he  says:  "We  shall  remain  neutral  in  the 
Anglo-American  conflict,  but  we  shall  recognize  the  Southern 
Confederacy.  "2 

It  is  manifest  from  these  citations  that  the  Emperor  was 
just  at  that  time  much  more  disposed  to  place  Great  Britain 
than  the  United  States  under  obligations  to  him. 

I  had  the  letter  of  General  Scott  immediately  translated  and 
copies  dispatched  to  the  principal  morning  and  evening  papers 
in  Paris,  and  copies  in  English  to  the  London  papers  in  time 
for  their  respective  editions  of  the  day  following  its  pub 
lication. 

The  expediency  of  making  this  statement  was  more  than 
justified  by  the  result.  It  was  copied  in  whole  or  in  part  pretty 

1  Thouvenel,  Le  Secret  de  1'Empereur,  Vol.  II,  p.  196. 
'  Memoires  de  Horace  de  Viel-Castel,  Vol.  VI,  p.  120. 


COBDEN'S  WARNING  TO  HIS  GOVERNMENT     393 

universally  by  the  European  press.  Coming  as  it  did  from 
General  Scott,  who  till  within  a  fortnight  had  been  practically 
a  member  of  the  Federal  Cabinet;  the  assurance  it  contained 
that  Commander  Wilkes  could  not  have  acted  under  orders 
from  his  Government,  and  that  if  Mr.  Seward  could  not  per 
suade  Earl  Eussell  that  his  Government  had  a  right  to  stop 
the  Trent  and  seize  the  rebel  commissioners,  Earl  Eussell 
would  unquestionably  be  able  to  persuade  Mr.  Seward  that  it 
had  not,  and  that  in  either  case  the  friendly  relations  of  the 
two  governments  were  not  imperilled— all  together,  these  con 
siderations  had  an  immediate  and  reassuring  effect. 

Our  friends  in  Europe  took  courage  from  General  Scott's 
letter,  and  began  to  wonder  how  they  ever  suspected  that  the 
Federal  Government  had  authorized  the  seizure  of  the  commis 
sioners,  or  doubted  that  the  proceeding  would  be  peacefully 
arranged.  A  complimentary  dinner  was  given  by  his  fellow- 
townspeople  at  Eochdale  to  Mr.  Bright,  whom  the  Trent  affair 
had  for  a  time  placed  between  the  upper  and  the  nether  mill 
stone,  to  afford  him  an  opportunity  of  giving  impulse  to  the 
reaction,  of  which  he  most  effectively  availed  himself.  At  this 
dinner  he  made  one  of  his  most  memorable  speeches  on  Ameri 
can  affairs. 

Mr.  Cobden  also,  who  was  invited  to  speak  at  this  meeting, 
sent  a  letter  which  was  a  skilful  amplification  of  the  letter  of 
General  Scott : 


An  opinion  seems  to  be  entertained  by  some  parties,  here  and  on 
the  Continent,  that  it  is  in  the  power  of  the  Governments  of  France 
and  England  to  control,  if  not  put  an  end  to,  the  conflict.  I  entertain 
the  strongest  conviction,  on  the  contrary,  that  any  act  of  intervention 
on  the  part  of  a  European  Power,  whether  by  breaking  the  blockade, 
or  a  premature  acknowledgment  of  the  independence  of  the  South, 
or  in  any  other  way,  can  have  no  other  effect  but  to  aggravate  and 
protract  the  quarrel.  History  tells  us  how  greatly  the  horrors  of  the 
French  Revolution  sprung  from  the  intervention  of  the  foreigner. 
Were  a  similar  element  thrown  in  to  infuriate  the  American  contest, 
every  restraining  motive  for  forbearance,  every  tKought  of  compro 
mise  or  conciliation  would  be  cast  to  the  winds — the  North  would  avail 
itself  of  the  horrible  weapon  always  ready  at  hand,  and  by  calling  in 
the  aid  of  the  negro  would  carry  the  fire  and  sword  of  a  servile  war 
into  the  South,  and  make  it  a  desolation  and  a  wilderness.  So  far 


394       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

from  expecting  that  the  raw  material  of  our  great  industry  would 
reach  us  sooner  in  consequence  of  such  an  intervention^  I  believe  the 
more  probable  result  would  be  the  destruction  of  the  cotton  plant 
itself  throughout  the  Southern  States  of  the  Union. 

I  have  seen  with  some  surprise  the  assumption  in  certain  quarters 
that,  from  the  moment  when  our  legal  authorities  have  given  their 
opinion  on  that  point  at  issue,  the  question  is  settled,  and  that  we  have 
only  to  proceed  to  enforce  their  award.  It  is  forgotten  that  the  matter 
in  dispute  must  be  decided  not  by  British  but  by  international  law, 
and  that  if  the  President's  Government  should  assume  the  respon 
sibility  of  the  act  of  their  naval  officer,  they  will  claim  for  the  reason 
ing  and  the  precedents  urged  by  their  legal  advisers  at  Washington, 
the  same  consideration  which  they  are  bound  to  give  to  the  arguments 
of  the  law  officers  of  the  British  crown.  To  refuse  this  would  be  to 
deny  that  equality  before  the  law  which  is  the  rule  of  all  civilized 
States,  and  to  arrogate  for  ourselves,  as  interested  parties,  arbitrary 
and  dictatorial  powers.  Had  I  been  able  to  meet  my  constituents,  I 
should  have  in  their  name,  and  with  I  know  their  full  concurrence, 
repudiated  the  language  of  those  public  writers  who,  without  waiting 
till  both  parties  have  had  a  hearing,  have  given  utterance  to  threats, 
which,  if  they  are  to  be  supposed  to  emanate  from  the  British  people, 
must  render  compliance  on  the  part  of  the  American  Government 
difficult,  if  not  impossible. 

Whatever  be  the  issue  of  the  legal  controversy,  this  is  a  question 
which  we  cannot  hope  to  bring  to  a  more  satisfactory  issue  by  an 
appeal  to  arms.  We  endeavored  to  impose  our  laws,  by  force,  on  the 
Americans  when  they  were  three  millions  of  colonists,  and  we  know 
the  result.  Again,  in  1812,  when  we  were  belligerents,  and  the  United 
States  with  eight  millions  of  people  were  neutral,  and  after  we  had  for 
years  subjected  their  vessels  to  search  and  seizure— which  will  now 
probably  be  adduced  as  precedents  to  justify  the  recent  proceedings 
on  their  part — a  war  broke  out  on  this  very  question  of  belligerent 
rights  at  sea,  which,  after  two  years  of  mutual  slaughter  and  pillage, 
was  terminated  by  a  treaty  of  peace  in  which,  by  tacit  agreement, 
no  allusion  was  made  to  the  original  cause  of  the  war.  With  these 
examples,  can  we  reasonably  hope  by  force  of  arms  to  compel  the 
20,000,000  of  Americans  who  are  now  united  under  the  Federal  Gov 
ernment  to  accept  our  exclusive  interpretation  of  the  law  of  nations  ? 


That  England  had  substantial  domestic  reasons  for  being  in 
no  haste  to  wake  np  an  enemy  beyond  the  Atlantic,  did  not 
figure  much  in  the  press,  but  one  may  find  a  naive  recognition 


THE  PROSPECTS  OF  THE  REBELLION         395 

of  the  fact  in  a  letter  written  by  Cobden  to  Bright  two  days 
after  his  friend's  Trent  speech  was  delivered.  Palmerston 
was  urging  an  enormous  expenditure  for  the  coast  defences  of 
England  from  the  predatory  instincts  of  the  Bonaparte  with 
whom  he  was  flirting  for  an  alliance  to  discipline  the  United 
States. 


MIDHURST,  Dec.  6,  1861.  (To  Mr.  Bright.) —Your  admirable  ad 
dress  cannot  fail  to  do  good.  But  it  is  a  mad  world  we  live  in.  Here 
I  am  in  the  midst  of  extracts  from  Hansard,  etc.,  to  show  up  the 
folly  or  worse  of  the  men  who  have  been  putting  us  to  millions  of 
expense  to  protect  us  from  a  coup  de  main  from  France,  and  now  we 
see  the  same  people  willing  to  rush  into  war  with  America,  and  leave 
us  exposed  to  this  crafty  and  dangerous  neighbor.  Might  we  not  be 
justified  in  turning  hermits,  letting  our  beards  grow,  and  returning  to 
our  caves  ?  . 


In  a  subsequent  letter  to  his  friend  Mr.  Paulton,  Mr.  Cobden 
admits  that  his  Government  let  "I  dare  not"  wait  upon  "I 
would. ' '  He  wrote : 


I  can't  see  my  way  through  the  American  business.  I  don't  believe 
the  North  and  South  can  ever  lie  in  the  same  bed  again.  Nor  can 
I  see  how  the  military  operations  can  be  carried  into  the  South,  so 
as  to  inflict  a  crushing  defeat.  Unless  something  of  the  kind  takes 
place  I  predict  that  Europe  will  recognize  the  independence  of  the 
South.  I  will  tell  Sumner  this,  and  tell  him  that  his  only  chance  if  he 
wants  time  to  fight  it  out  is  to  raise  the  blockade  of  the  Mississippi 
voluntarily,  and  then  Europe  might  look  on. 

But  our  friend  Bright  will  not  hear  anything  against  the  claims 
of  the  North.  I  admire  his  pluck,  for  when  he  goes  with  a  side  it 
is  always  to  win.  I  tell  him  that  it  is  possible  to  wish  well  to  a 
cause  without  being  sure  that  it  will  be  successful.  However,  he 
will  soon  find  in  the  House  that  we  shall  be  on  this  question,  as  we 
were  on  China,  Crimean,  and  Greek-Pacifico  wars,  quite  in  a  minority. 
There  is  no  harm  in  that  if  you  are  right,  but  it  is  useless  to  deceive 
ourselves  about  the  issue.  Three-fourths  of  the  House  will  be  glad  to 
find  an  excuse  for  voting  for  the  dismemberment  of  the  Great 
Republic.1 

1  Richard  Cobden,  Life  by  John  Morley,  p.  571. 


396        BETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

That  General  Scott's  letter  was  most  opportune  no  evidence 
was  furnished  more  significant  than  the  following  article  from 
the  London  Daily  News  only  three  or  four  days  after  its  wail 
of  despair  for  the  Union. 


GENERAL  SCOTT'S  LETTER 

General  Scott's  temperate  and  manly  letter  is  almost  the  only 
authoritative  expression  of  American  feeling  we  have  yet  had  on  the 
exciting  question  now  at  issue  between  the  two  countries.  It  is 
scarcely  surprising  that  such  a  document  should  have  rather  discon 
certed  the  calculations  of  those  who,  under  the  influence  of  strongly 
biassed  feeling,  had  virtually  decided  beforehand  the  course  which  the 
"Washington  Cabinet  would  pursue  in  this  grave  emergency.  It  was 
instructive,  for  example,  to  notice  the  ludicrous  alarm  which  Lord 
Malmesbury's  organ  (the  Herald]  yesterday  betrayed  lest  the  Gen 
eral's  letter  should  contribute  in  any  way  towards  bringing  us  nearer 
to  peace,  and  the  nervous  alacrity  with  which  it  hastened  to  assure 
its  readers  that  there  was  no  ground  whatever  for  such  a  suspicion. 
This  alarm  is  nevertheless  not  altogether  unfounded.  The  voice  of 
an  upright  honourable  man  like  General  Scott,  who  through  a  long 
career  has  served  his  country  in  the  most  difficult  and  responsible 
posts,  will  be  listened  to  with  respect,  and  every  paragraph  of  his 
letter  breathes  an  earnest  desire  for  peace.  It  is  true  he  writes  rather 
as  an  enlightened  and  responsible  citizen  than  as  a  jurist  or  politician, 
and  his  letter  is  accordingly  more  valuable  for  the  broad  and  calm 
view  it  takes  of  affairs  than  for  any  specific  opinions  expressed  on 
the  points  of  law.  But  there  is  no  ground  for  representing  that 
General  Scott  regards  the  act  which  threatens  the  peace  of  the  two 
countries  as  a  "very  small  affair/'  or  for  assuming  that  because  he 
refers  to  the  legal  points  in  dispute  as  matters  for  consideration  he 
necessarily  denies  the  justice  of  our  claim  for  reparation.  Our  out 
raged  honour  must  be  satisfied,  and  no  one  knows  this  better  than 
General  Scott.  But  we  imagine  that  the  communications  between  our 
own  Government  and  the  Washington  Cabinet  are  conducted  accord 
ing  to  the  usages  of  civilised  nations.  To  suppose  the  contrary  would 
be  a  deep  and  gratuitous  injustice  to  the  responsible  advisers  of  the 
Crown.  But  while  we  require  and  expect  a  practical  result  from  the 
application  to  the  Washington  Cabinet  which  Lord  Lyons  is  instructed 
to  make,  we  do  not  imagine  that  the  British  Government  will  arrogate 
to  themselves  the  right  of  refusing  to  listen  to  what  may  be  urged 
at  Washington  on  points  of  law.  The  law  under  discussion  is  a  law 
for  both  countries,  and  each  Government,  therefore,  has  an  interest 


MINISTER  ADAMS'S  REPORT  TO  MR.  SEWARD      397 

in  receiving  the  representations  of  the  other.  For  the  rest,  General 
Scott's  letter  displays  throughout  the  good  sense  and  good  feeling 
which  belong  to  his  character,  and  have  been  so  often  exemplified  in 
his  public  career.  Those  who  form  their  notion  of  the  Americans 
from  the  worst  passages  of  the  most  disreputable  rowdy  journals, 
may  be  surprised  at  the  terms  in  which  he  refers  to  this  country, 
and  the  value  he  attaches  to  a  .good  understanding  between  England 
and  America.  .  .  .  The  part  of  General  Scott's  letter  which  refers 
to  the  future  is  too  important  to  be  overlooked.  He  is  perfectly  right 
in  intimating  that  this  is  the  very  opportunity  for  reviewing  the  Law 
of  Nations  as  it  affects  the  rights  of  neutrals.  The  immediate  ques 
tion  with  regard  to  the  seizure  on  board  the  Trent  must,  of  course, 
be  settled  first.  But  the  point  of  honour  once  satisfied,  the  duty  of 
both  Governments  and  both  nations  is  to  look  forward  rather  than 
backward.  The  past  is  undoubtedly  but  too  full  of  violent  pre 
cedents,  overbearing  claims,  and  the  assertion  of  rights  which  no 
laws  ought  to  recognise  and  no  civilised  nations  tolerate.  In  all  great 
naval  wars  neutrals  have  not  only  been  sufferers,  but  they '  have 
often  suffered  to  an  extent  that  is  utterly  unjustifiable.  The  right 
of  search  has  been  wantonly  abused,  to  the  injury  of  neutral  shipping 
and  the  discouragement  of  neutral  commerce.  It  is  high  time  that 
these  abuses  were  finally  corrected  by  a  complete  revision  of  the  law 
relating  to  the  rights  of  neutrals.  General  Scott  urges  this  point  with 
great  force.  He  says  truly  enough,  that  the  United  States  Govern 
ment  has  been  striving  to  accomplish  this  necessary  revision  for 
more  than  fifty  years— from  the  beginning  of  the  century,  in  fact. 
The  time  is  surely  come,  as  he  suggests,  for  making  some  attempt 
"to  establish  these  rights— the  rights  of  neutrals— on  a  just,  humane, 
and  philosophic  basis. ' '  And  the  violent  act  of  Captain  Wilkes  may  in  the 
end  be  an  advantage  to  both  countries,  if  it  issues  in  a  united  effort 
to  bring  this  part  of  our  international  code  more  into  harmony  with 
the  requirements  of  civilisation,  and  the  augmented  wants  of  «a  busy 
and  commercial  age. 


CHAELES  FRANCIS  ADAMS  TO  WILLIAM  H.  SEWABD 

LEGATION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES, 

LONDON,  December  6,  1861. 
Sir: 

The  current  of  popular  feeling  is  still  running  with  resistless  force 
throughout  this  Kingdom.  The  conflict  of  opinion  heretofore  exist 
ing  with  powers  nearly  equal  in  favor  of  and  against  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  is  now  merged  in  an  almost  universal  demand 


398        EETEOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

for  satisfaction  for  the  insult  and  injury  thought  to  be  endured  by 
the  action  of  Captain  Wilkes. 

The  members  of  the  Government  as  a  whole  are  believed  not  to  be 
desirous  of  pressing  matters  to  a  violent  issue  but  they  are  powerless 
in  the  face  of  the  opinion  they  have  invited  from  the  law  officers 
of  the  Crown.  In  quick  succession  have  been  issued  two  proclamations 
forbidding  the  export  of  saltpeter  and  gunpowder  and  of  arms  and 
munitions  of  war.  At  the  same  time  orders  have  been  given  to  fit 
out  at  once  a  large  number  of  war  ships  upon  which  great  quantities 
of  arms  are  placed,  and  officers  and  men  are  warned  to  hold  them 
selves  in  readiness  to  embark  on  or  after  Christmas,  being  the  time 
when  the  response  to  the  dispatches  sent  out  by  the  Europa  on  Mon 
day  last  is  expected  to  arrive.  There  can  be  not  a  shadow  of  a  doubt 
that  the  passions  of  the  country  are  up  and  that  a  collision  is  inevitable 
if  the  Government  of  the  United  States  should  before  the  news  reaches 
the  other  side  have  assumed  the  position  of  Captain  Wilkes  in  a 
manner  to  preclude  the  possibility  of  explanation. 

Under  certain  circumstances  my  situation  is  becoming  very  rapidly 
not  merely  one  of  little  or  no  public  use  but  also  of  some  personal 
embarrassment.  Even  should  this  storm  blow  over  without  damage, 
so  completely  has  mutual  confidence  been  destroyed  by  it  that  there  is 
little  prospect  of  a  restoration  of  those  relations  upon  which  alone 
the  intercommunication  of  governments  can  be  made  to  yield  bene 
ficial  results.  Ministers  and  people  now  fully  believe  it  is  the  inten 
tion  of  the  government  to  drive  them  into  hostilities.  The  arrogance 
of  past  Administrations,  with  which  the  present  has  no  sympathy,  is 
yet  made  to  rest  on  the  latter  as  if  that  too  were  animated  by  the  same 
spirit. 

Much  of  this  state  of  opinion  has  its  source  in  persons  imbued 
with  a  settled  malignity  to  America,  but  it  ought  in  justice  to  be  added 
that  it  is  also  entertained  in  qualified  form  by  many  of  its  best 
friends.  Of  the  causes  of  this  misinterpretation  it  would  be  of  little 
moment  now  to  inquire.  Of  the  effect  I  have  been  fully  sensible  ever 
since  the  first  day  of  my  arrival.  It  has  most  unfortunately  under 
mined  that  confidence  in  the  good  intentions  of  an  Administration 
which  I  firmly  believe  to  have  been  the  most  in  harmony  with  the 
policy  of  Great  Britain  of  any  that  has  been  in  power  for  many  years 
until,  instead  of  being  friendly,  it  is  regarded  as  among  the  most 
hostile.  So  far  as  it  has  been  within  my  power  I  have  combatted 
this  impression  in  every  form  where  I  could  meet  it,  but  the  result 
has  been  rather  to  give  me  credit  for  good  intentions,  than  to  inspire 
conviction  of  the  Government's  sincerity. 

The  end  of  it  is  that  it  seems  really  a  matter  of  indifference  whether 
I  remain  or  not  at  this  post.  My  present  expectation  is  that  by  the 
middle  of  January  at  furthest  diplomatic  relations  will  have  been 


THE   TRENT  AFFAIR  IN  WASHINGTON         399 

sundered  between  the  two  countries  without  any  act  of  mine.  I  am 
therefore  endeavoring  to  complete  all  the  ordinary  business  of  the  lega 
tion  in  advance  of  the  moment  when  the  proper  instructions  will 
arrive  in  regard  to  the  final  disposition  of  its  affairs  as  well  as  to 
the  course  I  am  myself  to  pursue. 
I  have  the  honor  to  "be,  Sir, 

Your  Obedient  Servant 


While  the  achievement  of  Captain  Wilkes  depressed  the 
genuine  friends  of  our  country  in  Europe  to  the  verge  of 
despair,  it  was  received  in  the  United  States  with  a  corre 
sponding  degree  of  satisfaction.  The  press  was,  I  believe, 
practically  unanimous  in  its  commendation  of  the  captain's 
1  i  gallantry, "  and  of  the  disposition  made  of  his  captives. 
President  Lincoln  and  his  Cabinet,  with  two  exceptions,  ap 
proved  of  the  capture  and  thought  they  were  prepared  for 
whatever  might  be  the  consequences  of  detaining  the  commis 
sioners.  Mr.  Blair,  the  Postmaster-General,  said  at  once  that 
they  must  be  surrendered,  and  Seward  naturally  maintained  a 
discreet  silence  which  at  least  recognized  that  there  were  two 
sides  to  the  question.  Edward  Everett,  who  had  been  a  Min 
ister  to  England  and  a  Secretary  of  State ;  Caleb  Cushing,  who 
had  been  a  member  of  the  Cabinet  under  a  previous  adminis 
tration;  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  who  was  then  engaged  in  editing  a 
new  edition  of  Wheaton's  standard  work  on  international  law; 
Theophilus  Parsons,  a  professor  of  jurisprudence  in  Harvard 
University,  besides  a  multitude  of  less  conspicuous  men  upon 
whose  coolness  and  deliberation  in  a  crisis  the  nation  was  ac 
customed  to  rely,  were  elated  and  jubilant  over  the  capture, 
and  resolute  against  any  surrender  of  the  captives. 

On  the  24th  of  November  Captain  Wilkes  advised  the  Secre 
tary  of  the  Navy  of  his  delivery  of  his  prisoners  on  that  day  to 
Colonel  Dimick,  commanding  the  United  States  detachment  at 
Fort  Warren. 

On  the  27th  of  November  Mr.  Seward  wrote  Mr.  Adams : 

I  forbear  speaking  of  the  capture  of  Messrs.  Mason  and  Slidell.  The 
act  was  done  by  Commander  Wilkes  without  instructions  and  even 
without,  the  -knowledge  of  the  government.  Lord  Lyons  has  ju- 


400        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

diciously  refrained  from  all  communication  with  me  on  the  subject, 
and  I  thought  it  equally  wise  to  reserve  ourselves  until  we  hear  what 
the  British  Government  may  have  to  say  on  the  subject. 


GIDEON  WELLES,  SECEETAEY  OF  THE  NAVY,  TO  CAPTAIN 
CHAELES  WILKES 

NAVY  DEPARTMENT,  WASHINGTON,,  November  30,  1861. 
Sir: 

I  congratulate  you  on  your  safe  arrival,  and  especially  do  I  con 
gratulate  you  on  the  great  public  service  you  have  rendered  in  the 
capture  of  the  rebel  emissaries.  Messrs.  Mason  and  Slidell  have  been 
conspicuous  in  the  conspiracy  to  dissolve  the  Union  and  it  is  well 
known  that  when  seized  by  you  they  were  on  a  mission  hostile  to  the 
Government  and  the  country.  Your  conduct  in  seizing  these  public 
enemies  was  marked  by  intelligence,  ability,  decision  and  firmness  and 
has  the  emphatic  approval  of  this  Department. 

It  is  not  necessary  that  I  should  in  this  communication,  which 
is  intended  to  be  one  of  congratulation  to  yourself,  officers  and  crew, 
express  an  opinion  on  the  course  pursued  in  omitting  to  capture  the 
vessel  which  had  these  public  enemies  on  board  further  than  to  say 
that  the  forbearance  exercised  in  this  instance  must  not  be  permitted 
to  constitute  a  precedent  hereafter  for  the  infractions  of  neutral 
obligations. 

I  am,  &c. 


EEPOET  OF  THE  SECEETAEY  OF  THE  NAVY  TO  THE  PEESTDENT 

NAVY  DEPARTMENT,  December  2,  1861. 
The  President: 

Captain  Charles  Wilkes,  in  command  of  the  San  Jacinto,  while  search 
ing  in  the  West  Indies  for  the  Sumter  received  information  that  James 
M.  Mason  and  John  Slidell,  disloyal  citizens  and  leading  conspirators, 
were  with  their  suite  to  embark  from  Havana  in  the  English  steamer 
Trent  on  their  way  to  Europe  to  promote  the  cause  of  the  insurgents. 
Cruising  in  the  Bahama  Channel  he  intercepted  the  Trent  on  the  8th 
of  November  and  took  from  her  these  dangerous  men,  whom  he  brought 


SUMNER  OPPOSES  EMISSARIES'  RETENTION     401 

to  the  United  States.  His  vessel  having  been  ordered  to  refit  for 
service  at  Charlestown  the  prisoners  were  retained  on  board  and  con 
veyed  to  Fort  Warren,  where  they  were  committed  to  the  custody  of 
Colonel  Dimick,  in  command  of  that  fortress. 

The  prompt  and  decisive  action  of  Captain  Wilkes  on  this  occasion 
merited  and  received  the  emphatic  approval  of  the  Department,  and 
if  a  too  generous  forbearance  was  exhibited  by  him  in  not  capturing 
the  vessel  which  had  these  rebel  emissaries  on  board  it  may  in  view 
of  the  special  circumstances  and  of  its  patriotic  motives  be  excused, 
but  it  must  by  no  means  be  permitted  to  constitute  a  precedent  here 
after  for  the  treatment  of  any  case  of  similar  infraction  of  neutral 
obligations  by  foreign  vessels  engaged  in  commerce  or  in  carrying 

trade. 

GIDEON  WELLES, 

Secretary  of  the  Navy. 


The  House  of  Representatives,  meeting  a  month  after  the 
arrival  of  Captain  Wilkes  with  his  booty— a  reasonable  inter 
val  for  reflection— as  its  first  legislative  act,  passed  unani 
mously,  and  without  a  reference  to  a  committee,  a  joint  resolu 
tion  approving  Captain  Wilkes 's  "  brave,  adroit  and  patriotic 
conduct. "  It  also  requested  the  President  to  present  him  with 
a  gold  medal,  and  that  he  have  Mason  and  Slidell  confined  in 
the  cell  of  a  convicted  felon  until  Colonel  Michael  Corcoran, 
who  was  taken  prisoner  at  Manassas,  should  be  treated  as  all 
the  prisoners  of  war  taken  by  the  United  States  on  the  battle 
field  had  been  treated.  Though  there  was  not  wanting  a  cer 
tain  amount  of  distrust  in  some  quarters  as  to  the  legality  and, 
yet  more,  the  expediency  of  Captain  Wilkes 's  performance,  it 
was  pretty  generally  applauded  by  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
men  in  the  United  States. 

Senator  Sumner,  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign 
Affairs,  was  one  of  the  few  prominent  American  statesmen 
who  from  the  beginning  took  a  different  view  of  the  duty  of 
the  Government.  He  said  the  detention  of  the  captives  meant 
war  with  England,  and  "war  with  England  involves:  (1)  in 
stant  acknowledgment  of  rebel  States  by  England,  followed 
by  France;  (2)  breaking  of  the  present  blockade,  with  capture 
of  our  fleet,  Dupont  and  all ;  (3)  the  blockade  of  our  coast  from 
Chesapeake  to  Eastport;  (4)  the  sponging  of  our  ships  from 


402        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

the  ocean;  (5)  the  establishment  of  the  independence  of  rebel 
States;  (6)  opening  of  these  States  by  free  trade  to  English 
manufactures,  which  would  be  introduced  by  contraband  into 
our  States,  making  the  whole  North  American  continent  a 
manufacturing  dependency  of  England. " 

Thurlow  Weed,  the  writer  of  the  following  letter,  was  and 
for  half  of  a  century,  more  or  less,  had  been  the  editor  of  the 
Albany  Evening  Journal,  the  official  paper  originally  of  the 
Whig  and  afterwards  of  the  Eepublican  party  at  the  capital 
of  New  York  State.  He  was  also  a  close  political  and  personal 
friend  of  Mr.  Seward.  He  sailed  with  Bishop  Mcllvaine  of  the 
Episcopal  Church  and  Archbishop  Hughes  of  the  Catholic 
Church  in  the  steamer  Arago  for  Havre  the  day  following 
that  on  which  Mason  and  Slidell  were  taken  from  the  Trent, 
November  8,  1861.  He  returned  to  New  York  in  June,  1862, 
spending  the  interval  mainly  between  Paris  and  London. 


THURLOW    WEED    TO   BTGELOW 

LONDON,  December  5,  [1861]. 
Dear  Bigelow: 

If  bankers  are  well  informed  things  are  at  their  worst,  with 
slight  chance  for  improvement.  At  Baring's  and  at  Peabody's, 
it  is  confidently  believed  that  instructions  went  over  for  Lyons 
to  demand  a  release  of  S.  &  M.  or  his  own  passport. 

And  the  war  preparations  look  like  it.  Immense  shipment 
of  arms  to  Canada,  war  vessels  getting  ready,  etc. 

Baring  is  against  us  "  flat-footed. ' '  Peabody  tries  to  see 
both  sides — ours  dimly. 

The  Queen's  sympathies  and  conversation  are  on  our  side. 

Duke  of  Newcastle  is  reported  to  say,  that  Seward  told  him 
in  America  that  we  should  have  to  fight  England  in  a  year  or 
two.1  Morgan  is  to  know  positively  about  this  tomorrow. 

1  Late  in  the  year  1860  and  during  a  visit  of  the  present  sovereign  of  Eng 
land  to  the  United  States,  he  was  entertained  in  Albany  at  a  dinner  given  to 
him  and  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  who  accompanied  him.  Mr.  Seward,  who  was 
already  aware  of  his  own  selection  for  the  office  of  Secretary  of  State  by  Mr. 


THE  CROWN  LAWYERS  DEFEND  THE  CAPTURE    403 

December  6. 

I  have  just  left  Mr.  Adams  who  shares  all  my  apprehensions 
and  with  additional  lights. 

The  Ministry  long  believing  we  meant  to  pick  a  quarrel  with 
England,  choose  their  own  time,  making  the  Trent  affair  the 
occasion  and  pretext. 

The  Duke  of  Newcastle  repeats  what  Seward  said,  or  did  n't 
say  to  him.  I  suppose,  however,  that  he  did  say  idle  words, 
better  left  unsaid,  if  liable  to  be  misapprehended. 

I  am  writing,  letters  to  Congressmen  which  will  be  received, 
probably,  after  the  matters  to  which  they  refer  have  been  dis 
posed  of. 

Yours  truly 


At  the  risk  of  being  somewhat  tedious  I  am  unwilling  to  dis 
miss  this  subject  without  giving  my  readers  the  benefit  of  the 
new  and  very  important  light  shed  upon  the  terms  of  the  letter 
addressed  by  Lord  John  Eussell  to  Lord  Lyons,1  which  has 
recently  been  disclosed  in  the  Letters  of  Queen  Victoria  be 
tween  the  years  1837  and  1861,  which  were  published  by  his 
Majesty  Edward  VII.  in  the  year  1907.  In  this  correspondence 
we  have  a  letter  from  Downing  Street  on  the  13th  of  Novem 
ber,  1861,  by  Viscount  Palmerston,  then  Prime  Minister,  to 
Queen  Victoria,  in  which  he  says : 


There  was  reason  to  suspect  that  an  American  federal  steamer  of 
war  of  eight  guns,  which  had  lately  arrived  at  Falmouth,  and  from 
thence  at  Southampton,  was  intended  to  intercept  the  Mail  Packet 
coming  home  with  the  West  Indian  Mail,  in  order  to  take  out  of  her 
Messrs.  Mason  and  Slidell,  the  two  Envoys  from  the  Southern  Con 
federacy,  supposed  to  be  coming  in  her. 

Lincoln,  the  President-elect,  chaffingly  remarked  to  the  Duke  of  Newcastle 
that  he  was  soon  to  be  in  a  position  where  it  would  be  his  duty  to  insult  Great 
Britain,  and  of  course  he  would  do  it.    The  duke,  being  a  Scotchman,  was  not 
to  blame  for  taking  this  remark  of  Mr.  Seward  seriously. 
1  See  p.  426. 


404       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Viscount  Palmerston  had  on  Monday  a  meeting  at  the  Treasury 
of  the  Chancellor,  Doctor  Lushington,  the  three  Law  Officers  (Sir 
William  Atherton,  Attorney-General,  Sir  Roundell  Palmer,  Solicitor- 
General,  and  Dr.  Phillimore,  Counsel  to  the  Admiralty) ,  the  Duke  of 
Somerset,  Sir  George  Grey,  and  Mr.  Hammond.  The  result  of  their 
deliberation  was  that,  according  to  the  Law  of  Nations,  as  laid  down 
by  Lord  Stowell,  and  practised  and  enforced  by  England  in  the  war 
with  France,  the  Northern  Union  being  a  belligerent  is  entitled  by  its 
ships  of  war  to  stop  and  search  any  neutral  Merchantmen,  and  the 
West  India  Packet  is  such;  to  search  her  if  there  is  reasonable  sus 
picion  that  she  is  carrying  enemy's  despatches,  and  if  such  are  found 
on  board  to  take  her  to  a  port  of  the  belligerent,  and  there  to  pro 
ceed  against  her  for  condemnation.  Such  being  ruled  to  be  the  law, 
the  only  thing  that  could  be  done  was  to  order  the  Phaeton  frigate  to 
drop  down  to  Yarmouth  Roads  from  Portsmouth,  and  to  watch  the 
American  steamer,  and  to  see  that  she  did  not  exercise  this  belligerent 
right  within  the  three-mile  limit  of  British  jurisdiction,  and  this  was 
done.  But  Viscount  Palmerston  sent  yesterday  for  Mr.  Adams  to  ask 
him  about  this  matter,  and  to  represent  to  him  how  unwise  it  would  be 
to  create  irritation  in  this  country  merely  for  the  sake  of  preventing 
the  landing  of  Mr.  Slidell,  whose  presence  here  would  have  no  more 
effect  on  the  policy  of  your  Majesty  with  regard  to  America  than  the 
presence  of  the  three  other  Southern  Deputies  who  have  been  here 
for  many  months.  Mr.  Adams  assured  Viscount  Palmerston  that  the 
American  steamer  had  orders  not  to  meddle  with  any  vessel  under 
any  foreign  flag;  that  it  came  to  intercept  the  Nashville,  the  Con 
federate  ship  in  which  it  was  thought  the  Southern  Envoys  might 
be  coming;  and  not  having  met  with  her  was  going  back  to  the 
American  coast  to  watch  some  Merchantmen  supposed  to  be  taking 
arms  to  the  Southern  ports. 


About  two  weeks  later,  and  on  the  29th  of  November,  Vis 
count  Palmerston,  writing  to  the  Queen,  says : 


.  .  .  The  Cabinet  at  its  meeting  this  afternoon  resumed  the  consid 
eration  of  the  forcible  capture  of  the  Southern  Envoys  from  on  board 
the  Trent  steamer  upon  which  the  law  officers  had  yesterday  given 
the  opinion  contained  in  the  accompanying  report.  The  law  officers 
and  Doctor  Phillimore,  Counsel  to  the  Admiralty,  were  in  attendance. 
The  result  was  that  it  appeared  to  the  Cabinet  that  a  gross  outrage 
and  violation  of  international  law  has  been  committed,  and  that  your 


CABINET  DISAGREES  WITH  CROWN  LAWYERS     405 

Majesty  should  be  advised  to  demand  reparation  and  redress.  The 
Cabinet  is  to  meet  again  to-morrow  at  two,  by  which  time  Lord  Rus 
sell  will  have  prepared  an  instruction  to  Lord  Lyons  for  the  consid 
eration  of  the  Cabinet,  and  for  submission  afterwards  to  your  Majesty. 
The  general  outline  and  tenor  which  appeared  to  meet  the  opinions 
of  the  Cabinet  would  be,  that  the  Washington  Government  should  be 
told  that  what  has  been  done  is  a  violation  of  international  law,  and  of 
the  rights  of  Great  Britain,  and  that  your  Majesty 's  Government  trust 
that  the  act  will  be  disavowed  and  the  prisoners  set  free  and  restored 
to  British  Protection ;  and  that  Lord  Lyons  should  be  instructed  that 
if  this  demand  is  refused  he  should  retire  from  the  United  States. 

It  is  stated  by  Mrs.  and  Miss  Slidell,  who  are  now  in  London,  that 
the  Northern  officers  who  'came  on  board  the  Trent  said  that  they  were 
acting  on  their  own  responsibility,  without  instructions  from  Wash 
ington  ;  that  very  possibly  their  act  might  be  disavowed  and  the  pris 
oners  set  free  on  their  arrival  at  Washington.  But  it  was  known 
that  the  San  Jacinto,  though  come  from  the  African  station,  had 
arrived  from  thence  several  weeks  before,  and  had  been  at  St.  Thomas, 
and  had  there  received  communications  from  New  York;  and  it  is 
also  said  that  General  Scott,  who  has  recently  arrived  in  France,  has 
said  to  Americans  in  Paris  that  he  has  come  not  on  an  excursion 
of  pleasure,  but  on  diplomatic  business;  that  the  seizure  of  these 
envoys  was  discussed  in  Cabinet  at  Washington,  he  being  present, 
and  was  deliberately  determined  upon  and  ordered ;  that  the  Washing 
ton  Cabinet  fully  foresaw  it  might  lead  to  war  with  England;  and 
that  he  was  commissioned  to  propose  to  France  in  that  case  to  join  the 
Northern  States  in  war  against  England,  and  to  offer  France  in  that 
case  the  restoration  of  the  French  Province  of  Canada. 

General  Scott  will  probably  find  himself  much  mistaken  as  to  the 
success  of  his  overtures;  for  the  French  Government  is  more  dis 
posed  towards  the  South  than  the  North,  and  is  probably  thinking 
more  about  Cotton  than  about  Canada.  .  .  .  1 

It  will  be  observed  that  in  Viscount  Palmerston's  first  letter 
the  law  officers  of  her  Majesty,  without  an  exception,  con- 

*As  an  illustration  of  the  spirit  which  animated  Lord  Palmerston  in  those 
days,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  quote  a  paragraph  from  a  letter  written  just 
one  month  later  than  the  above  to  the  Queen,  wishing  her  Majesty  the  compli 
ments  of  the  season : 

"This  autumn  and  winter  however  have  been  productive  of  events  in  three 
of  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe  which  future  years  are  not  likely  to  repeat. 
The  capture  of  Pekin  in  Asia  by  British  and  French  troops;  the  Union  in 
Europe  of  nearly  the  whole  of  Italy  into  one  Monarchy;  and  the  approaching 
and  virtually  accomplished  Dissolution  in  America  of  the  great  Northern  Con 
federation,  are  events  full  of  importance  for  the  future,  as  well  as  being 
remarkable  in  time  present." 


406        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

curred  in  the  declaration  that,  "according  to  the  Law  of  Na 
tions,  as  laid  down  by  Lord  Stowell,  and  practised  and 
enforced  by  England  in  the  war  with  France,  the  Northern 
Union  being  a  belligerent  is  entitled  by  its  ships  of  war  to 
stop  and  search  any  neutral  Merchantmen,  and  the  West  India 
Packet  is  such ;  to  search  her  if  there  is  reasonable  suspicion 
that  she  is  carrying  enemy's  despatches,  and  if  such  are  found 
on  board  to  take  her  to  a  port  of  the  belligerent,  and  there  to 
proceed  against  her  for  condemnation. ' ' 

In  the  second  letter,  of  the  29th  of  November,  though  the  law 
officers  and  Dr.  Phillimore  were  in  attendance  at  a  Cabinet 
council,  Viscount  Palmerston  says:  "The  result  was  that  it 
appeared  to  the  Cabinet  [not  to  the  law  officers  any  more]  that 
a  gross  outrage  and  violation  of  international  law  has  been 
committed,  and  that  your  Majesty  should  be  advised  to  de 
mand  reparation  and  redress. ' ' 

On  the  same  day  this  letter  was  addressed  to  the  Queen, 
Earl  Eussell,  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  addressed  to  the 
Queen  the  following  letter : 


EAEL  EUSSELL  TO  QUEEN  VICTOEIA 

FOREIGN  OFFICE,  29th  November,  1861. 

Lord  Russell  proposes  to  frame  a  draft  for  tomorrow's  Cabinet 
of  a  despatch,  to  Lord  Lyons,  directing  him  to  ask  for  the  release  of 
Messrs.  Mason  and  Slidell  and  their  two  companions,  and  an  apology. 
In  case  these  requirements  should  be  refused,  Lord  Lyons  should  ask 
for  his  passports. 

The  Lord  Chancellor  and  the  law  officers  of  the  Crown  are  clear 
upon  the  law  of  the  case. 

Lord  Russell  will  be  glad  to  have  your  Majesty's  opinion  on  the 
draft  which  will  go  to  your  Majesty  about  four  o'clock  tomorrow, 
without  loss  of  time,  as  the  packet  goes  to-morrow  evening.1 

1  The  draft  of  the  dispatch  to  Lord  Lyons  reached  Windsor  on  the  evening 
of  the  30th,  and,  in  spite  of  his  weak  and  suffering  state,  the  Prince  prepared 
the  draft  of  the  Queen's  letter  early  the  following  morning.  The  letter  has 
been  printed  in  facsimile  by  Sir  Theodore  Martin,  who  adds  that  it  has  a 
special  value  as  "representing  the  last  political  Memorandum  written  by  the 


THE  LAST  ACT  OF  THE  PRINCE  CONSORT     407 

In  reply  to  this  letter  Queen  Victoria  addressed  Earl  Russell 
the  following  communication: 


QUEEN  VICTOEIA  TO  EARL  RUSSELL 

WINDSOR  CASTLE,  1st  December,  1861. 

[Note  in  the  Queen's  handwriting:  This  draft  was  the  last  the 
beloved  Prince  ever  wrote ;  he  was  very  unwell  at  the  time,  and  when 
he  brought  it  in  to  the  Queen,  he  said:  "I  could  hardly  hold  my  pen." 

VICTORIA  B.] 


The  Queen  returns  these  important  drafts,  which  upon  the  whole 
she  approves,  but  she  cannot  help  feeling  that  the  main  draft,  that 
for  communication  to  the  American  Government,  is  somewhat  meagre. 
She  should  have  liked  to  have  seen  the  expression  of  a  hope  that  the 
American  captain  did  not  act  under  instructions,  or,  if  he  did,  that 
he  misapprehended  them— that  the  United  States  Government  must 
be  fully  aware  that  the  British  Government  could  not  allow  its  flag 
to  be  insulted,  and  the  security  of  her  mail  communications  to  be 
placed  in  jeopardy,  and  Her  Majesty's  Government  are  unwilling  to 
believe  that  the  United  States  Government  intended  wantonly  to 
put  an  insult  upon  this  country,  and  to  add  to  their  many  distressing 
complications  by  forcing  a  question  of  dispute  upon  us,  and  that  we 
are  therefore  glad  to  believe  that  upon  a  full  consideration  of  the 
circumstances,  and  of  the  undoubted  breach  of  international  law 
committed,  they  would  spontaneously  offer  such  redress  as  alone  could 
satisfy  this  country,  viz.  the  restoration  of  the  unfortunate  passengers 
and  a  suitable  apology. 


I  need  not  disguise  the  satisfaction  I  experienced  from  read 
ing  this  letter,  on  discovering,  after  an  interval  of  almost  fifty 
years,  that  the  letter  of  General  Scott  was  but  an  amplification 

Prince,  while  it  was  at  the  same  time  inferior  to  none  of  them,  as  will  presently 
be  seen,  in  the  importance  of  its  results.  It  shows,  like  most  of  his  Memo 
randums,  by  the  corrections  in  the  Queen's  hand,  how  the  minds  of  both  were 
continually  brought  to  bear  upon  the  subjects  with  which  they  dealt." 


408        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

of  substantially  the  same  views  that  were  commended  by  the 
Prince  Eegent  to  the  Queen,  adopted  by  her,  and  gave  the  final 
tone  to  the  letter  which  Lord  Lyons  was  instructed  to  com 
municate  to  Mr.  Seward. 


EARL  EUSSELL  TO  THE  LORDS  COMMISSIONERS 
OF  THE  ADMIRALTY 

FOREIGN  OFFICE  [LONDON],  November  30,  1861. 
My  Lords: 

I  have  received  the  Queen's  commands  to  transmit  to  your  lord 
ships  the  instructions1  which  are  to  be  sent  to-day  to  Lord  Lyons. 
The  Queen  directs  that  copies  of  these  instructions  should  be  sent 
to  Vice-Admiral  Sir  A.  Milne.  Vice- Admiral  Sir  A.  Milne  should  be 
directed  to  communicate  fully  with  Lord  Lyons  and  to  take  such 
measures  as  circumstances  may  seem  to  require. 

The  vice-admiral  will  refrain  from  any  act  of  hostility  against 
the  sea  or  land  forces  of  the  United  States  except  in  self-defence. 
But  as  the  act  of  wanton  violence  and  outrage  which  has  been  com 
mitted  makes  it  not  unlikely  that  other  sudden  acts  of  aggression  may 
be  attempted,  Vice-Admiral  Sir  A.  Milne  will  take  care  not  to  place 
his  ships  in  positions  where  they  may  be  surprised  or  commanded  by 
batteries  on  land  of  a  superior  force.  He  should  not  detach  more 
than  one  line-of-battle  ship  and  two  frigates  on  the  expedition  to  Vera 
Cruz,  and  he  should  dispose  of  the  rest  of  his  force  in  the  manner  in 
which  it  may  prove  most  serviceable  in  case  of  hostilities.  He  will 
look  to  the  safety  of  Her  Majesty's  possessions  in  North  America 
and  the  West  Indies,  and  he  will  in  all  respects  execute  all  such 
commands  as  he  may  receive  from  your  lordships  to  guide  him  in  the 
performance  of  his  arduous  duties.  Your  lordships  will  no  doubt 
be  of  opinion  that  Admiral  Milne  ought  not  himself  to  go  to  Vera 
Cruz  and  in  that  case  an  officer  acquainted  with  the  Mexican  coast 
may  be  the  most  fitting  person  to  act  with  Sir  Charles  Wyke  in  the 
discharge  of  duties  on  that  coast. 

I  am,  &c. 

1  To  prepare  the  British  North  American  squadron  for  sailing  orders. 


WILKES  AND  THE  LAW  OF  NATIONS          409 
EICHAED  H.  DANA,  JE.,  TO  BIGELOW 

BOSTON,  Dec.  7,  1861. 
My  dear  Mr.  Bigelow: 

...  I  believe  we  shall  begin  now  to  gain  upon  the  insur 
gents  steadily.  I  suppose  N.  Orleans,  Savannah,  and  Charles 
ton  to  be  the  points  of  attack.  The  rapid  increase  of  our  steam 
fleet  of  gun  boats  makes  the  blockade  daily  more  effectual ;  and 
the  affairs  of  Hatteras,  Port  Eoyal,  and  the  S.  Jacinto  here 
give  life  and  favor  to  the  navy. 

But,  supposing  our  success  to  be  ever  so  complete,  by  flood 
or  field,  what  is  to  be  the  political  result!  Will  the  people  of 
the  South  thro'w  off  their  present  leaders,  leaving  them  to 
exile  or  punishment,  and  return  to  their  alliance?  This  is  the 
consummation  most  devoutly  to  be  wished.  I  do  not  believe 
that  the  Eepublic  can  go  on  under  the  old  auspices  of  an  oli 
garchy  of  slaveholders  possessing  a  power  'anywhere  near  as 
great  as  they  possessed  before.  If  the  old  limits  are  restored, 
the  Slave  Power  as  a  social  and  political  force  must  be  dimin 
ished  or  destroyed.  Our  people  will  not  refuse  a  union  with 
Slave  states,  even  on  the  old  constitutional  basis,  but  it  must 
be  on  such  terms  as  shall  effectually  prevent  the  slaveholders 
becoming  a  power  to  rule  or  ruin. 

As  to  emancipation,  notwithstanding  all  you  hear  of  Sum- 
ner's  speeches,  and  Mr.  Cameron's  report  and  the  conversion 
of  the  pro-slavery  democrats  into  abolitionists,  I  do  not  believe 
that,  when  it  comes  to  the  point,  the  people  will  carry  on  a  war 
for  the  purpose  of  forcible  emancipation  in  all  the  states  by 
the  general  government.  The  people  are  ready  to  deal  with 
local  slavery  strongly  and  keenly  under  the  war  power,  as  a 
means,  and  rejoice  in  the  ability  to  do  so.  But  to  make  imme 
diate  emancipation  as  a  moral  crusade,  the  purpose  of  the 
war;  to  practically  set  aside  the  Constitution,  and  construct 
by  force  of  arms  a  central  government,  which  shall  take  upon 
itself  the  solution  of  the  four  million  negro  problem,  without 
the  assent  or  co-operation  of  the  Southern  whites— from  that 
we  should  shrink.  Only  necessity  would  bring  us  to  it.  The 
only  thing  about  which  I  feel  sure,  is  that  there  shall  be  no 
attempt  at  an  arrangement  until  we  shall  have  thoroughly 


410        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

whipped  them,  so  that  there  can  be  no  more  insolence  from 
them,  but  we  have  substantially  the  selection  of  our  terms. 

Wilkes  did  a  capital  thing.  It  struck  a  chord  which  thrilled 
through  the  land.  And  we  all  think  he  had  the  law  of  nations 
with  him.  Personally  I  do  not  see  room  for  a  doubt.  And  then 
the  poetic  justice  of  Mason  being  brought  a  prisoner  to  Bos 
ton.1 

As  to  England,  it  is  evident  she  is  paying  off  an  old  score 
against  us,  and  is  hoping  to  lay  forever  the  spectre  of  the 
Great  Eepublic.  I  suppose  Beresford  Hope's  ignorant  slangy 
speech  is  an  indication  of  the  feeling  of  the  high  tories  toward 
us.  They  have  an  instinctive  sympathy  with  slaveholders,  and 
beyond  that  see  a  blow  at  Eepublican  government. 

These  are  great  times  to  live  in.  I  wish  I  were  an  actor  on 
the  great  central  stage ;  not  that  I  feel  myself  positively  quali 
fied,  but  relatively  I  cannot  feel  that  I  should  displace  my 
betters  as  to  many  of  our  representatives.  But  few  of  our 
Members  of  Congress  are  men  whom  any  of  us  would  select 
for  the  charge  of  any  great  public  concern.  That  has  been  the 
failure  in  our  political  system.  Public  life  has  run  down.  But 
this  tribulation  is  to  carry  us  to  a  better  state  of  things. 

Good  Bye  and  believe  me  truly,  yours 


Mr.  Sanford,  our  Minister  to  Belgium,  appears  to  have  been 
invested,  by  some  department  of  the  Government  at  Washing 
ton,  with  the  authority  to  purchase  guns  and  other  needed 
military  supplies  for  the  Union  army.  The  following  letter 
relates  to  negotiations  attempted  by  him  in  Egypt  through  our 
Consul-General  there,  William  S.  Thayer. 


H.   S.   SANFORD   TO   BIGELOW 

M    j        -&•     i  BRUSSELS,  7  Dec.,  1861. 

My  dear  Bigelow: 

I  have  yours  of  the  5th  enclosing  Thayer 's  letter— the  vague 
reply  of  his  to  my  telegram  of  enquiry  has  caused  me  to  wait 

1  Dana  here  seems  to  attribute  to  Mason  instead  of  his  senatorial  colleague 
Toombs  the  prediction  that  the  day  was  approaching  when  he  would  call  the 
roll  of  his  slaves  on  Bunker  Hill. 


SANFORD  AND  HIS  GUN  PURCHASES  411 

for  a  report  from  our  inspector  who  will  be  in  Marseilles  to 
morrow.  If  I  can  get  any  suitable  guns  nearer  home  and  to 
be  forwarded  immediately,  I  think  now  it  will  be  more  pru 
dent.  There  is  difficulty  in  the  way  of  transportation  by 
steam,  and  probably  in  the  speedy  packing  etc.  of  arms.  I 
shall  decide  in  a  day  or  two  upon  the  reports. 

We  are  having  all  sorts  of  miseres.  The  Congress  full  of 
contraband,  in  Southampton  detained— the  E'stella  to  take  out 
a  large  .freight  from  Antwerp  withdrawn  by  intervention  of 
English  Consul  and  a  larger  amount  of  guns  to  go  by  her 
to  seek  some  other  means  of  transportation— the  German 
steamer  full.  I  offered  $30,000  for  an  extra  steamer  yester 
day,  but  it  was  declined.  I  am  afraid  to  have  steamers  loaded 
with  our  arms  go  into  Southampton  and  have  sent  to  Boker 
not  to  let  her  freight  go  thus  into  the  lion's  mouth. 

Genl.  Scott's  letter  was  very  opportune  and  has  done  good. 
Was  it  your  "copy?"  the  points  were  well  put— it  has  a  wide 
circulation  I  see. 

I  am  appalled  at  the  war  spirit  in  England.  The  Yankee 
seems  to  have  aroused  a  hatred  there  second  only  to  the  senti 
ment  shown  in  Dixieland. 

When  will  the  reaction  set  in? 

In  haste,  Yours  truly 


I  observe  Thayer's  letter  speaks  of  Mr.  Hale  of  the  Adver 
tiser.  When  you  see  him,  I  wish  you  would  incidentally  ask 
the  origin  of  their  slangy  attacks  upon  me  in  the  Boston 
papers.  I  suspect  it  comes  from  a  man  named  Ripley,  who 
was  here  on  the  Macedonian  case,  and  whom  I  caught  in  a  very 
ugly  piece  of  business :  Conniving  at  putting  one  of  the  seals 
of  the  Legation  into  the  hands  of  Mrs.  Fair  and  using  it  him 
self  afterwards  for  smuggling  lace,  if  not  Southern  correspon 
dence.  I  wrote  him  a  very  sharp  letter  requesting  him  to 
give  an  explanation,  if  he  had  any  to  give— but  it  elicited  no 
reply.  Had  I  caught  him  here  after  my  knowledge  of  the 
business,  which  has  a  very  ugly  name  in  law— he  would  have 
had  a  hard  time  of  it.  I  have  sent  for  details  of  the  engage 
ments  made  by  the  E ' Stella's  brokers.  Boker 's  was  not  in 


412        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

writing.  I  understand  some  others  were,  and  if  I  can  make 
out  a  case  I  think  of  instituting  Suit— the  law  is  precise  and 
my  lawyer  whom  I  consulted  says  that  heavy  damages  can 
be,  in  his  opinion,  recovered— if  I  find  it  will  lay  I  will  get 
Boker  or  their  agents  to  undertake  it— unfortunately,  the 
vessel  is  not  in  port;  her  broker,  however,  is  a  wealthy  and 
responsible  merchant— and  I  itch  to  make  somebody  pay  for 
the  tour  old  Pam.  has  put  upon  us. 


Dear  Friend: 


WEED  TO  BIGELOW 

LONDON,  December  8,  1861. 


Huge  preparations  are  going  forward  here,  and  with  the 
utmost  haste.  The  government  expects  it  [war]  and  the  peo 
ple  will  be  disappointed  if  balked. 

I  dined  with  a  large  English  party  on  Friday — all  were 
strong  Northern  sympathizers,  and  all,  nevertheless,  for  war 
if  S.[lidell]  &  M.[ason]  are  not  given  up. 

There  is  great  and  general  hostility  to  Seward  here.  He  is 
regarded  as  the  incarnation  of  ill-will  to  England. 

I  forgot  to  say,  in  the  right  connection,  that  at  dinner  (with 
Sir  Emerson  Tennent)  Gen.  Scott's  letter  was  warmly  com 
mended,  as  it  is,  indeed,  wherever  I  go  in  London.  Mr.  Lucas,1 
who  called  last  evening,  was  much  gratified  with  the  thought 
ful  kindness  which  made  his  paper  the  medium. 

Mr.  Adams,  who  came  in  since  I  commenced  this  letter,  sheds 
a  ray  of  hope  by  telling  me  there  is  an  Editorial  in  the  Tribune 
taking  our  view  of  the  Trent  affair,  and  saying  that  if 
S.[lidell]  &  M.[ason]  can  be  used  to  help  the  cause  of  Neutral 
Commerce  they  will  prove  of  more  value  than  ever  has  been 
expected,  etc.  etc. 

1  Mr.  Lucas  was  the  editorial  manager  of  the  London  Star  and  a  brother-in- 
law  of  John  Bright. 


NO  WAR  UNLESS  ENGLAND  DESIRES  IT        413 
BIGELOW  TO  WILLIAM  HAKGREAVES 

PAKIS,  Dec.  9,  1861. 
My  dear  Mr.  Har greaves: 

I  am  greatly  relieved  by  a  perusal  of  the  American  papers 
reed,  today.  I  found  none  of  them  defending  the  policy  of 
seizing  the  rebel  emissaries  on  the  Trent  in  contemplation  of 
seriously  offending  England.  They  seem  anxious  to  persuade 
themselves  that  England  will  find  nothing  in  the  act  to  which 
she  can  take  exception.  This  leads  me  to  hope  with  consider 
able  confidence  that  when  my  countrymen  come  to  see  how 
seriously  the  thing  is  taken  by  Europe  they  will  at  once  say 
to  your  minister:  "We  thought  the  law  sustained  us  and  think 
so  still,  but  these  scamps  are  not  worth  your  friendship,  much 
less  a  war;  take  them  and  be  hanged. "  The  difficulty  and  the 
only  difficulty  that  I  can  foresee  will  be  in  regard  to  the  form 
of  the  surrender.  Our  Govt.  may  be  unwilling  to  put  them  on 
board  a  British  steamer,  for  that  might  have  to  some  extent 
the  character  of  an  ovation  to  them,  but  Mr.  Seward  may  say, 
"We  will  put  these  men  back  in  Dixie  whence  they  illegally 
escaped,  and  if  they  get  again  on  board  a  British  passenger 
ship  we  will  promise  not  to  trouble  them  there. "  Upon  such 
terms  the  surrender  might  be  made  and  I  think  would  be 
made.  Less  favorable  terms  to  us  would  be  of  no  advantage 
in  the  end  to  either  party. 

I  don't  know  how  to  express  my  gratitude  sufficiently  to  Mr. 
Bright  for  his  Eochdale  speech.  It  was  worthy  the  heart  and 
the  head  of  Chas.  J.  Fox.  He  will  live  to  bless  the  day  that  he 
was  inspired  to  make  it.  The  Press  here  in  Paris  is  quite 
disposed  to  have  the  right's  of  neutrals  put  upon  a  proper 
footing  before  this  Trent  affair  is  settled,  and  I  suspect  Eng 
land  will  find  less  unanimity  on  this  side  the  straits  in  any 
aggressive  policy  she  may  contemplate  towards  the  United 
States,  than  seems  to  be  anticipated.  It  is  our  firm  conviction 
here  that  there  will  be  no  war  unless  England  desires  it,  but 
the  impression  is  that  England  wants  enough  of  war  to  fur 
nish  an  excuse  for  breaking  the  blockade  without  exposing  her 


414        RETBOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

motives  to  degrading  suspicions  and  to  divide  our  confederacy 
that  she  may,  among  other  things,  do  the  banking  and  carry 
ing  trade  for  Dixie.  It  is  only  this  apprehension  that  gives 
me  any  distrust  of  the  peaceful  termination  of  the  Trent 
affair.  On  the  other  hand  I  know  that  the  Times,  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle  and  some  other  great  powers  in  England  are 
assiduously  cultivating  the  notion  that  we,  Mr.  Seward  above 
all,  are  "spoiling  for  a  fight "  with  Great  Britain.  How  any 
body  could  believe  this  who  was  not  as  Mr.  Bright  says  ' '  dead 
drunk "  I  cannot  comprehend.  Happily  the  tone  of  our 
journals  just  received  sufficiently  disposes  of  any  doubt  upon 
the  subject.  I  have  not  seen  a  paper  that  proposes  to  fight 
for  Slidell's  and  Mason 's  carcasses— not  one.  It  is  a  similar 
inference  I  presume  drawn  in  London,  that  has  advanced  the 
stocks  on  your  exchange,  today,  as  I  am  told,  three  fourths 
per  cent. 

I  think  if  Mr.  Seward  promptly  gives  up  those  men  upon 
such  conditions  and  in  such  a  way  as  an  independent  nation 
properly  can,  it  will  place  the  present  administration  in  your 
country  in  a  rather  disadvantageous  position,  for  the  fury  and 
precipitation  exhibited  in  this  matter  of  the  Trent  by  the 
cabinet  and  the  Press  could  only  be  excusable  upon  the  clearest 
presumption  that  we  meant  to  insult  England  in  making  the 
seizure  and  when  made  were  disposed  to  stand  by  it  regardless 
of  consequences :  in  other  words  that  we  were  worse  than  in 
different  about  the  friendship  of  England. 

It  is  already  sufficiently  apparent  I  think  that  no  such  feel 
ing  exists  with  us  and  it  seems  to  me  that  Lord  John  must,  if 
he  ever  reads  our  papers,  by  this  time  think  he  took  us  up 
rather  sharply,  that  he  stopped  the  works  at  your  manufac 
tories  for  American  account  rather  abruptly;  that  he  spoiled 
a  number  of  excellent  contracts  quite  unnecessarily;  in  other 
words  that  he  and  his  colleagues  have  shown  a  great  deal 
more  of  unfriendliness  towards  America  than  America  has 
shown  towards  England  in  this  affair. 

Yours  most  truly 


IF  WAR  MUST  COME,  LET  IT  BE  DEFERRED     415 


J.  LOTHEOP  MOTLEY,  MINISTER  OF  THE  UNITED   STATES  AT 
VIENNA,   TO  BIGELOW 

LEGATION  OF  THE  U.  S.  AMERICA, 

VIENNA,  Dee.  17,  1861. 
My  dear  Sir: 

Mr.  Bates,  head  of  the  Baring  Brothers,  and  as  staunch  and 
patriotic  an  American  as  exists  in  the  world,  wrote  me  on  the 
13th  April— "a  week  ago  I  should  have  said  with  you  that  we 
were  drifting  into  a  war  with  England,  but  a  change  has  come 
over  the  Government  here,  and  they  seem  now  disposed  to  do 
all  in  their  power  to  stop  the  departure  of  privateers.  They 
have  stopped  a  small  vessel  in  Liverpool,  and  are  prompt  in 
acknowledging  Mr.  Adams's  communications.  ...  I  think  if 
the  U.  S.  do  not  issue  letters  of  marque  we  shall  avoid  war, 
for  ministers  are  beginning  to  be  convinced  that  the  country 
will  not  go  with  them.  The  confederates  are  trying  hard  to 
get  us  into  a  war  with  England.  It  is  their  last  card,  and  I 
don't  think  they  will  succeed  if  the  Washington  government 
is  wise  .  .  ." 

I  agree  entirely  with  these  views  and  I  think  that  so  eminent 
a  merchant  who  has  such  good  opportunities  of  seeing  what  is 
going  on  and  who  is  so  entirely  faithful  to  his  native  land,  is 
a  good  judge  in  the  case. 

The  Barings  are  all  secessionists  except  Mr.  Bates— but  of 
course  they  don't  want  war — I  think  myself  it  would  be  an 
awful  sell  to  have  a  row  with  England  now.  If  we  should 
really  take  Charleston  (for  God  knows  what  the  truth  of  all 
these  flying  rumors  may  be),  why,  the  blockade  running  must 
soon  come  to  an  end  and  we  can  spare  more  fast  sailing 
cruisers  to  look  up  the  Alabamas.  If  war  must  come,  let  it  be 
deferred.  I  agree  with  you  that  it  is  hard  to  be  hit  without 
hitting  back ;  but  after  all,  this  is  not  all  England  fighting  us, 
only  Laird  and  his  fellow  curs.  I  hope  we  shall  keep  our  bull 
dog  grip  on  the  throat  of  the  rebellion  and  not  allow  ourselves 
to  be  made  to  loose  our  hold  by  all  these  puny  efforts  of  their 
helpers.  I  am  well  aware,  however,  that  there  is  a  strong 


416        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

party  in  England  who  wish  war  with  us— Palmers  ton  himself 
would  far  rather  have  a  war  with  us  than  with  Russia— France 
on  the  contrary  would  prefer  to  fight  Eussia,  I  think.  But  if  we 
must  fight  England  I  would  rather  she  would  put  herself  so 
completely  in  the  wrong,  as  to  make  us  unanimous.  Still  it 
would  be  a  poor  bargain  to  give  up  the  Southern  country  and 
take  Canada  in  exchange,  after  two  years  of  warfare  and  com 
mercial  ruin.  The  frozen  St.  Lawrence  running  E.  &  W.  is  a 
poor  substitute  for  the  Mississippi.  A  friend  of  mine,  Mr. 
Forbes  of  Boston,  &  Mr.  Aspinwall  of  New  York  are  in  Lon 
don.  I  am  told  that  their  object  is  to  buy  the  privateers.  I 

doubt  whether  the  plan  succeeds. 

...•••••« 

Once  more  thanking  you  and  with  kind  regards  from  us  all 
to  Mrs.  Bigelow  and  yourself,  I  remain, 

Ever  sincerely  yours 


MOTLEY   TO  BIGELOW 

Private 

LEGATION  OF  THE  U.  S.  AMERICA, 

VIENNA,  Dec.  19, 1861. 
My  dear  Sir: 

I  was  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  your  letter  of  Dec.  7.— 
I  thank  you  likewise  for  your  kindness  in  sending  me  Gen 
eral  Scott's  letter— which  I  admired  very  much,  and  with 
which  I  entirely  sympathize. 

I  delayed  writing  to  you,  in  reply,  until  we  should  have  re 
ceived  here  the  telegram  of  the  Message,  and  concerning  the 
possible  tone  of  which  I  have  been  exceedingly  anxious.  I 
have  been  saying  all  the  time,  if  the  Government  does  n't 
cottMnit  itself  in  the  Message,  I  shall  begin  to  breathe  again. 
Well,  we  got  the  telegram  yesterday  afternoon,  and  I  saw  with 
great  satisfaction  that  the  word  Trent  was  not  mentioned. 
This  is  as  much  as  I  dared  to  hope.  Now  it  seems  to  me  that 
we  may  get  out  of  this  extremely  awkward  scrape.  It  would 


THE  BULL  RUN  AND  COTTON  FAMINE    417 

be  mere  fustian  and  idiotic  braggadocio  on  our  part  to  pretend 
that  we  wished  war  with  England.  Our  war  with  the  South 
is  beginning  to  prosper,  but  we  don't  find  that  business  such  a 
trivial  one,  as  to  make  it  worth  our  while  to  give  our  domestic 
enemies  the  slight  assistance  of  the  whole  navy  of  England, 
the  most  powerful  ever  heard  of  in  the  world. 

Those  who  have  the  interests  and  the  honor  of  our  republic 
in  their  hands,  will  hesitate  long,  I  trust,  before  they  compro 
mise  both  by  accepting  a  war  with  England  at  this  moment. 
It  is  no  humiliation  for  us  now  to  maintain  the  principle  al 
ways  advocated  by  us,  that  a  naval  officer  is  not  to  constitute 
himself  judge  in  admiralty.  As  to  our  interests,  I  suppose 
that  Mr.  Chase  does  not  find  it  so  easy  to  get  the  ways  and 
means  for  the  present  warfare  to  desire  to  negotiate  an  odd 
thousand  millions  or  so  extra  to  pay  for  the  little  episode  of  a 
war  with  England.  In  short,  there  is  not  a  word  to  be  said 
about  it.  We  can  extricate  ourselves  with  honor,  and  we  must 
do  so.  A  war  with  England  at  this  moment  is  perdition— I 
cannot  believe  that  we  are  such  a  set  of  lunatics  as  deliberately 
to  commit  a  grand  national  suicide. 

I  won't  characterize  the  conduct  of  England,  as  exhibited  in 
its  press,  with  two  honorable  exceptions,  Daily  News  &  Star, 
and  in  its  public  speeches  with  the  single  exception  of  John 
Bright— to  whom  I  feel  much  more  disposed  to  give  a  vote  of 
thanks  than  to  Capt.  "Wilkes— its  attitude  towards  us  will  not 
be  one  for  honorable  men  to  feel  proud  of,  one  of  these  days. 

But  there  has  been  an  immense  change  in  that  Country 
since  I  left  it  in  June  last,  and  then,  although  there  were  cold 
ness  and  indifference  enough,  together  with  a  good  deal  of 
quiet  satisfaction  that  republicanism  had  come  to  grief,  there 
was  still  a  considerable  confidence  felt  that  we  should  succeed 
in  putting  down  the  insurrection,  and  so  that  by  waiting  they 
should  get  their  cotton,  which  was  all  the  mass  cared  about. 
On  the  whole  they  waited  with  exemplary  patience— for  them, 
almost  to  justify  the  complacent  boasts  which  they  daily  make 
before  the  world— that  they  did  n't  break  our  blockade,  thus  to 
shamefully  violate  every  principle  of  international  law,  in 
order  to  help  themselves,  by  force,  to  their  cotton.  But  Bull 
Eun  did  the  business.  That  destroyed  our  prestige,  and  made 
it  manifest  that  the  cotton  famine  would  be  a  long  and  very 
dangerous  one.  So  they  have  been  watching  for  a  good  pre- 


418       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

text  and  our  enterprising  Captain  has  played  into  their  hands 
exactly.  "Pam"  was  getting  shaky— and  now  he  has  got  a 
good  cry— "Insult  to  the  flag "— "Outrage  to  English  honor " 
—"Yankee  insolence"— "Death  before  dishonor "— and  so 
on.  So  the  tories,  who,  in  the  course  of  the  conservative  reac 
tion  now  sweeping  over  England,  have  gained  immense 
strength,  will,  after  all,  not  find  it  so  difficult  to  trip  him  up  as 
they  thought.  It  is  all  a  game  in  which  the  interests  of  forty 
or  fifty  millions  of  people  are  the  country  and  a  few  politicians 
the  players.  The  fustian  about  "insult  to  the  flag"  is  ridicu 
lous,  when  we  all  know  that  the  crown  lawyers  have  rested 
their  whole  case  on  the  point — that  the  Trent  itself  should 
have  been  seized  and  carried  to  the  United  States,  which  pro 
ceeding  would  have  certainly  been  considered  more  insulting 
and  probably  have  been  attended  with  bloodshed  on  the  spot. 

But  I  did  n't  mean  to  go  an  instant  into  the  merits.  Our 
people  are  calmly  discussing  the  matter  as  a  law  point— not 
dreaming  that  an  immense  party  in  England  had  seized  on  the 
matter  as  a  casus  belli  because  they  were  looking  for  one. 
They  wanted  a  pretext,  I  hope  they  may  not  get  it.  If  the 
matter  is  now  handled  in  a  large  and  statesmanlike  way  at 
Washington,  we  may  yet  pluck  the  flower  safety  out  of  this 
Trent  nettle. 

Do  have  the  kindness  to  write  to  me  as  soon  as  you  con 
veniently  can  and  tell  me  all  you  know  in  regard  to  Gen. 
Scott's  return.  Did  he  see  any  body  in  power — has  he  received 
officially  or  unofficially  any  communication  from  the  French 
Government,  or  has  he  gone  back,  as  I  suppose,  to  do  what  he 
can  on  his  own  hook  to  prevent  this  catastrophe?  If  there  is 
any  thing  positive  pray  let  me  know.  You  have  no  idea  of  our 
intense  anxiety  on  this  subject.  When  you  get  this  letter,  you 
will  already  be  in  possession  of  the  Message  and  the  latest 
papers.  While  I  write  I  have  only  the  confused  topsy  turvy 
telegram,  and  that  fellow  Eeuter  always  puts  the  worst  foot 
foremost,  so  I  hope  the  facts  are  better  than  the  first  an 
nouncements.  I  shall  not  believe  that  Congress  had  already 
passed  a  vote  of  thanks  on  the  3rd  of  Dec.,  until  I  find  it 
proved.  I  also  decline  to  believe,  for  the  present,  that  a  stone 
fleet  has  sailed  down  the  Mississippi,  for  the  purpose  of  block 
ading  Charleston  and  Savannah.  Yet  that  is  word  for  word  in 
the  same  telegram  which  announces  the  vote  of  thanks  to 


MOTLEY  AND  THE  "WILKES  BLUNDER"      419 

Wilkes.  You  see  by  the  tone  of  my  letter  that  I  entirely  agree 
with  you  on  the  subject.  When  I  first  heard  the  news  of  the 
action  of  the  English  Government,  it  was  by  telegram  an 
nouncing  that  they  had  virtually  declared  war  upon  us,  by 
sending  a  communication  which  no  Govt.  could  have  received 
without  disgrace.  This,  it  seems,  however,  was  only  newspa 
per  bombast,  and  I  shall  now  not  renounce  hope  till  every 
straw  has  disappeared. 

I  rely  on  the  adroitness  and  common  sense  of  the  cabinet  to 
extricate  us  from  the  dilemma,  and  I  don 't  feel  so  much  afraid 
of  the  gas  blowers  of  New  York  and  other  cities,  as  to  tremble, 
if  only  the  government  stands  firm.  I  talk  in  this  sense  here 
with  my  colleagues  and  maintain  the  most  friendly  relations 
with  the  English  ambassador,  a  most  amiable  and  excellent 
man,  who  is  as  sincerely  desirous  as  I  am  that  war  between  the 
two  countries  should  be  avoided.  I  never  will  believe  that  we, 
on  our  side,  shall  play  into  the  hands  of  those  English  and 
American  newspapers,  which  in  the  interests  of  the  Southern 
confederacy,  and  in  reality  as  their  hardly  disguised  organs, 
have  been  working  so  long  to  get  up  a  war,  and  to  provide  the 
slave  holders  with  an  English  alliance. 

The  war,  in  short,  seems  to  me  both  inevitable  and  impos 
sible  and  I  believe  that  impossibility  will  carry  the  day. 

We  are  too  shrewd  a  people  not  to  feel  that  it  would  be 
better  for  us  to  make  the  English  a  present,  not  only  of  Mason 
-and  Slidell,  but  to  offer  them  their  pick  of  a  dozen  more  such 
out  of  the  riff  raff  of  Fort  Warren,  than  to  go  to  war  for  them. 
The  two  here  have  done  us  more  damage  already,  than  they 
would  have  accomplished  in  London  and  Paris  in  a  year. 
Yancey  and  the  rest  have  accomplished  little.  Now  let  the 
populace  of  London  take  the  horses  out  of  their  carriage  and 
drag  the  commissioners  in  triumph  up  Piccadilly,  and  let  them 
be  received  with  a  speech  of  welcome  by  the  prime  minister. 
It  would  be  infinitely  better  for  us,  and  make  more  friends  for 
us  in  Europe,  than  to  keep  them  in  the  fort. 

We  are  gradually  getting  accustomed  to  Vienna.  It  is  a 
sombre  place,  at  first,  and  we  reached  it  when  ' '  the  melancholy 
days  had  come,  the  saddest  of  the  year"— and  the  sadness  was 
not  relieved  by  the  nature  of  the  intelligence  which  reaches  us 
day  by  day. 

In  the  Ball's  Bluff  business,  the  killed,  wounded  and  cap- 


420        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

tured  of  the  Mass,  regiments  were  all  intimate  friends.  They 
behaved  magnificently,  but  I  should  like  to  know  whose  blunder 
it  was  that  sacrificed  so  much.  Lee,  Colonel  of  the  20th, 
is  an  old  friend  of  mine,  and  a  most  valuable  officer— and  there 
he  is  in  a  felon's  cell.  When  I  was  at  home  I  walked  about 
with  him  in  his  camp,  near  Boston.  He  was  full  of  enthusiasm 
and  hope.  And  now  this  blunder  of  Wilkes  is  like  to  do  in 
finite  damage.  I  honor  Lincoln  for  his  silence  in  the  Message. 
If  people  only  knew  how  much  wisdom  there  is  in  holding  the 
tongue,  how  much  wiser  we  should  all  become. 

Pray  let  me  hear  from  you  as  soon  as  you  conveniently  can. 
Tell  me  what  you  know  about  Scott,  and  about  this  design  of 
the  French.  Give  our  particular  regards  to  Mrs.  Bigelow  and 
accept  them  for  yourself. 

Ever  most  faithfully  yours 


GENERAL  LEWIS  CASS1  TO  SEWARD 

DETROIT,  December  19,  1861. 

HON.  W.  H.  SEWARD,  Secretary  of  State. 
Dear  Sir: 

Our  telegraphic  information  yesterday  led  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  British  demands  arising  out  of  the  Mason  and  Slidell  affair  would 
reach  you  last  evening  and  I  therefore  took  the  liberty  of  communicat 
ing  with  you  by  telegraph  some  suggestions  that  had  occurred  to  me, 
presuming  they  would  reach  you  this  morning  during  the  Cabinet 
deliberations.  You  must  find  in  my  anxiety  to  avoid  a  war  with 
England  my  reason  for  the  liberty  I  have  taken  upon  this  occasion  and 
I  trust  also  an  excuse  for  it. 

It  seems  to  me  that  such  a  war,  independent  of  any  other  con 
sequences,  would  go  far  to  prevent  the  restoration  of  the  rebel  states 
to  the  authority  of  the  Constitution,  a  restoration  so  anxiously  de 
sired  by  every  true  citizen.  My  object  in  troubling  you  is  to  explain 

1  Lewis  Cass  had  been  Secretary  of  War  in  the  Cabinet  of  President  Jack 
son,  1831-36;  Minister  to  France,  1836-42;  United  States  Senator  from 
Michigan,  1845-48;  Democratic  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  1848;  United 
States  Senator,  1849-57,  and  Secretary  of  State  under  Buchanan,  1857-60. 
Till  the  Rebellion  he  had  always  acted  with  the  Democratic  party.  He  was 
born  in  1782  and  died  in  1866.  " 


CASS  AND  THE  "WILKES  BLUNDER"          421 

the  motive  of  my  telegraphic  communication.  I  thought  the  sugges 
tions  were  worth  consideration,  offering  as  they  appeared  to  me  to 
do  an  honorable  means  of  terminating  all  difficulty  with  England  as 
to  the  capture  of  Mason  and  Slidell. 

Though  I  think  it  was  justifiable  upon  grounds  laid  down  and  acted 
upon  by  England,  yet  I  considered  it  a  most  useless  and  unfortunate 
affair— an  affair  which  from  its  evident  importance  should  never  have 
been  undertaken  by  Captain  Wilkes  without  express  orders  from  his 
Government,  and  his  interference  is  the  more  inexcusable  as  he  states 
in  his  report  that  in  his  search  into  the  authorities  upon  the  law  of 
nations  he  could  find  no  such  case  decided  and  was  brought  to  con 
sider  the  rebel  commissioners  as  the  ''embodiment  of  dispatches" — 
I  think  is  his  phrase — in  order  to  justify  the  arrest ;  a  strange  reason 
to  be  officially  given  for  such  a  procedure.  And  what  has  amazed 
me  more  than  anything  else  in  this  whole  affair  are  the  laudations 
bestowed  upon  Captain  Wilkes  for  his  courage  in  taking  three  or  four 
unarmed  men  out  of  an  unarmed  vessel.  No  doubt  the  indignation 
justly  felt  against  Slidell  and  Mason  for  their  treasonable  conduct 
has  produced  a  decided  effect  upon  the  public  mind  in  the  views  that 
have  been  expressed. 

As  to  any  injury  which  these  rebel  agents  could  do  us  in  Europe 
it  is  all  nonsense.  The  question  of  recognition  will  be  decided  by  the 
governments  there  on  views  of  their  own  interests  and  not  from  any 
representations  which  such  men  or  any  men  indeed  could  make.  They 
would  have  been  perfectly  harmless  in  Europe,  but  have  been  exalted 
into  importance  by  this  unlucky  accident.  So  far  as  depends  upon 
the  political  communication  of  the  rebel  states  with  Europe  they  can 
send  just  as  many  agents  there  as  they  please. 

But  the  principle  of  capture  is  of  very  great  political  importance  to 
us,  as  is  manifest  on  the  slightest  consideration. 

Wishing  you  all  success  in  the  difficult  circumstances  in  which 
the  country  is  placed,  I  am,  dear  sir,  truly  yours, 


WEED  TO  BIGELOW 

LONDON,  19  December  [1861]. 
Dear  Bigelow: 

Mr.  Adams  has  a  despatch  which  affords  a  gleam  of  hope. 
It  authorizes  Mr.  A.  to  say  to  Lord  Palmerston  that  it  ap 
proves  the  views  Mr.  A.  expressed  to  Lord  P.  on  the  subject 


422        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

of  neutral  rights  and  to  add  that  should  things  occur,  unhap 
pily,  during  our  domestic  troubles  disturbing  friendly  rela 
tions  the  matters  shall  be  rightfully  disposed  of,  etc.  etc. 

I  suppose  you  know  that  M.  Mercier  was  instructed  by  his 
government,  to  say  to  ours,  that  the  Trent  affair  cannot  be 
regarded  with  favor  or  even  indifference  by  governments 
other  than  England,  and  especially  by  France. 

We  have  commenced  operations  here  for  the  future,  if  all 
is  not  over.  See  the  Leader  in  this  morning's  News.  It  was 
written  by  one  of  the  cleverest  men  in  London,  from  whom 
they  will  get  many  of  the  i  i  same  sort. ' ' 

Very  truly  yours 


P.S.  I  have  a  letter  from  the  Archbishop  [Hughes  of  New 
York]  saying  that  he  has  concluded  not  to  present  his  letter 
[to  the  Emperor]  at  present.  Mr.  Adams  by  his  confidence 
and  kindness  disembarrasses  me  in  that  respect. 

Truly  yours 


WILLIAM  C.  BEY  ANT  TO  BIGELOW 

NEW  YORK,  December  23rd,  1861. 
Dear  Mr.  Bigelow: 

The  case  of  Mason  and  Slidell  makes  an  infinite  deal  of  talk 
here  and  I  suppose  the  excitement  in  America  is  quite  as  great 
as  it  is  in  England  in  regard  to  that  subject.  The  mercantile 
feeling  is  a  little  timid  as  regards  the  prospect  of  a  war  with 
Great  Britain,  but  even  among  the  mercantile  class,  there  is 
an  undercurrent  of  indignation  at  the  insolence  of  Great 
Britain  in  perverting  into  a  cause  of  quarrel  an  act  copied 
directly  from  her  own  example,  and  in  perfect  accordance  with 
the  law  of  nations  as  her  own  jurists  have  expounded  it.  Noth 
ing  but  having  another  war  on  our  hands  prevents  a  violent 
outbreak  of  resentment.  Unless  the  demand  made  by  the 
British  Government  be  exceedingly  moderate  in  its  nature,  a 


BRYANT  AND  THE  "WILKES  BLUNDER"        423 

feud  will  be  created  which  can  never  be  so  healed  as  not  to 
leave  an  ugly  scar. 

With  regard  to  our  quarrel  with  the  Southern  States  the 
general  feeling  is  one  of  impatience  suppressed  with  some 
difficulty  at  the  tardy  proceedings  of  those  who  have  the  direc 
tion  of  affairs.  People  wonder  and  wonder  what  is  the  reason 
for  keeping  such  an  immense  army  at  Washington,  an  army 
now  admirably  disciplined  and  perfectly  equipped,  and  ready 
for  any  expedition  on  which  they  may  be  sent— when  it  is 
clear  that  the  seat  of  government  might  be  defended  with  a 
quarter  of  the  number. 

My  own  view  of  the  matter  however  leads  me  to  be  con 
tented  with  these  delays,  and  I  can  see  that  good  may  grow 
out  of  the  encouragement  which  the  rebels  will  derive  from 
the  differences  into  which  we  have  got  ourselves  with  Great 
Britain. 

General  Scott  7s  letter  was  very  much  liked  here  and  whether 
justly  or  not  the  credit  of  its  authorship  was  given  by  many 
to  you.— Best  regards  to  Mrs.  Bigelow  and  believe  me, 

Truly  yours 


PAEKE  GODWIN  TO  BIGELOW 

NEW  YOBK.  Dec.  24.  1861. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

I  dare  not  venture  under  the  existing  dangers,  which 
threaten  our  country,  to  wish  you  and  yours  a  Merry  Christ 
mas  :  but  I  certainly  wish  you  all  a  happy  and  blessed  one.  By 
this  time  I  think  you  have  learned  that  the  British  flurry  was 
in  many  respects  quite  premature.  Our  Government  will  not 
surrender  Mason  and  Slidell,  but  it  will  disclaim  every  inten 
tion  of  insult,  and  I  think  make  the  case  occasion  for  the 
proposal  of  negotiations  on  an  extended  scale  to  cover  larger 
questions  of  maritime  law.  A  reference  to  an  international 
commission  may  possibly  be  contemplated.  Lord  Lyons  has 
yet  presented  no  demands,  although  he  and  Seward  are  in 
daily  intercourse  and  conversation  about  the  matter.  Lyons 


424        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

recalled  some  dinner  invitations  for  Christmas  which  he  gave 
last  week,  but  yesterday  renewed  them,  showing  that  he  ex 
pected  to  remain  here  some  days  at  least.  My  notion  is  that 
Great  Britain  means  to  fasten  a  war  upon  us  if  she  can,  and 
therefore  I  am  for  defeating  her  as  far  as  we  can,  by  every 
stretch  of  courtesy,  short  of  dishonor.  Just  now  a  foreign 
war  would  be  disastrous,  but  two  months  hence,  when  we  shall 
have  got  the  whip  hand  of  the  rebellion  as  we  surely  shall,  we 
shall  be  more  prepared.  God's  hand  is  in  this  whole  thing 
more  clearly  than  I  ever  before  saw  it  in  human  affairs.  Sla 
very  is  doomed,  and  then, — there  may  be  a  shaking  among  the 
thrones  of  Europe.  Scott  is  expected  to  arrive  today:  his 
letter,  I  take  it,  was  your  handiwork. 

Yours  truly 


JAMES  BOWEN  TO  BIGELOW 

NEW  YOKK,  27  Dec.  1861. 
Dear  Bigelow: 

I  have  received  your  letters  of  3  &  6  Dec.  and  that  of  the 
later  date  I  have  sent  to  Seward.  There  will  be  no  war  with 
England,  for  it  is  probable  that  she  cannot  submit  a  proposi 
tion  respecting  the  two  traitors  to  which  our  Govt.  will  not 
accede  and  with  the  cordial  approval  of  the  whole  country. 
It  is  felt  that  we  have  our  hands  full  with  the  rebellion  and 
that  to  call  down  upon  us  the  arms  of  Great  Britain  would  be 
madness.  Nevertheless,  the  feeling  against  Great  Britain  is 
of  intense  hatred  and  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  is, 
that  we  must  give  up  the  traitors,  put  down  the  rebellion,  in 
crease  our  navy,  perfect  the  discipline  of  the  600,000  men  in 
the  field,  and  then  fight  Great  Britain.  This  is  the  present 
sentiment— what  it  will  be  when  our  debt  is  900  millions  with 
the  certainty  of  its  increase  to  2000  millions  if  we  fight  her, 
time  will  determine. 

What  is  the  exact  state  of  the  question  at  Washington  is 
known  to  none  but  Lincoln,  Seward,  and  Lyons.  It  has  not 
been  before  the  Cabinet,  and  from  what  I  can  learn  it  will  not 


CHARLES  FRANCIS  ADAMS  AND  BRUNNOW     425 

be  until  it  is  virtually  settled.  It  will  be  determined  by  the 
Pres.  and  Secy,  of  State,  without  the  assistance  or  knowledge 
of  other  members  of  the  Cabinet.— I  have  no  time  to  write 
further.  Yourg 


CHAELES  FKANCTS  ADAMS  TO  SEWAED 

LEGATION  OP  THE  UNITED  STATES, 

LONDON,  November  29,  1861. 

HON.  WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD,  Secretary  of  State,  Washington. 
Sir: 

On  my  arrival  in  town  on  Thursday  I  found  a  note  from  Lord 
Russell  asking  me  to  call  and  see  him  at  an  hour  of  the  day  which  had 
already  elapsed.  But  my  secretary,  Mr.  Moran,  who  had  been  ap 
prised  of  the  moment  when  I  should  return,  called  in  person  at  the 
foreign  office  and  explained  to  one  of  the  under  secretaries  the  reason 
of  the  delay.  The  conference  was  then  postponed  until  Friday  at  a 
quarter  to  2  o'clock,  when  it  took  place.  The  substance  of  it  I  will 
now  proceed  to  submit  to  your  consideration. 

His  lordship  remarked  that  it  was  altogether  too  early  to  enter  into 
any  discussion  of  the  subject  upon  which  he  had  desired  to  see  me, 
the  seizure  of  Messrs.  Mason,  Slidell  and  others  on  board  of  a  British 
vessel.  His  object  now  was  only  to  inquire  in  advance  of  a  meeting 
of  the  ministers  at  2  o'clock  whether  I  had  any  information  from 
my  Government  touching  the  matter  or  was  possessed  of  any  light 
which  it  might  be  useful  for  him  to  possess.  I  replied  that  I  .knew 
no  more  of  the  affair  than  what  had  been  stated  in  the  newspapers. 
I  was  not  prepared  to  say  a  word  about  it  because  I  was  possessed 
neither  of  the  true  state  of  the  facts  nor  of  the  views  which  my  Gov 
ernment  had  taken  of  them.  I  did  not  even  know  how  far  the  naval 
officer  had  acted  under  authority. 

I  ought  to  add  that  in  going  into  the  anteroom  previous  to  the  con 
ference  I  met  there  Baron  Brunnow,  the  Russian  Minister,  who  seized 
the  occasion  to  express  his  great  regret  at  the  misunderstanding  which 
is  taking  place  and  his  earnest  offer  of  any  services  on  the  part  of 
himself  or  his  Government  that  might  have  the  effect  to  restore 
friendly  relations  between  the  two  countries. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be,  sir,  your  obedient  servant 


426        KETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 


EAEL  EUSSELL  TO  LOBD  LYONS 

FOREIGN  OFFICE  [LONDON],  November  30,  1861. 

LORD  LYONS,  K.C.B.,  &c.,  Washington. 
My  Lord: 

Intelligence  of  a  very  grave  nature  has  reached  her  Majesty's 
Government. 

This  intelligence  was  conveyed  officially  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
admiralty  by  Commander  Williams,  agent  for  mails  on  board  the 
contract  steamer  Trent. 

It  thus  appears  that  certain  individuals  have  been  forcibly  taken 
from  on  board  a  British  vessel,  the  ship  of  a  neutral  power,  while 
such  vessel  was  pursuing  a  lawful  and  innocent  voyage— an  act  of 
violence  which  was  an  affront  to  the  British  flag  and  a  violation  of 
international  law. 

Her  Majesty's  Government  bearing  in  mind  the  friendly  relations 
which  have  long  subsisted  between  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States  are  willing  to  believe  that  the  U.  S.  naval  officer  who  committed 
the  aggression  was  not  acting  in  compliance  with  any  authority  from 
his  Government,  or  that  if  he  conceived  himself  to  be  so  authorized 
he  greatly  misunderstood  the  instructions  which  he  had  received; 
for  the  Government  of  the  United  States  must  be  fully  aware  that 
the  British  Government  could  not  allow  such  an  affront  to  the  national 
honor  to  pass  without  full  reparation,  and  her  Majesty's  Government 
are  unwilling  to  believe  that  it  could  be  the  deliberate  intention  of 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  unnecessarily  to  force  into  dis 
cussion  between  the  two  Governments  a  question  of  so  grave  a  char 
acter  and  with  regard  to  which  the  whple  British  nation  would  be 
sure  to  entertain  such  unanimity  of  feeling. 

Her  Majesty's  Government  therefore  trust  that  when  this  matter 
shall  have  been  brought  under  consideration  of  the  Government  of  the 
United  States,  that  Government  will  of  its  own  accord  offer  to  the 
British  Government  such  redress  as  alone  could  satisfy  the  British 
nation,  namely,  the  liberation  of  the  four  gentlemen  and  their  delivery 
to  your  lordship  in  order  that  they  may  again  be  placed  under  British 
protection  and  a  suitable  apology  for  the  aggression  which  has  been 
committed.  Should  these  terms  not  be  offered  by  Mr.  Seward  you 
will  propose  them  to  him. 

You  are  at  liberty  to  read  this  dispatch  to  the  Secretary  of  State, 
and  if  he  shall  desire  it  you  will  give  him  a  copy  of  it. 

I  am,  &c. 


THE   TRENT  AFFAIR  IN  LONDON  427 


EAEL  EUSSELL  TO  LOED  LYONS 

FOREIGN  OFFICE  [LONDON]  ,  November  30,  1861. 
LORD  LYONS,  &c.,  Washington. 

My  Lord: 

In  my  previous  dispatch  of  this  date  I  have  instructed  you  by  com 
mand  of  Her  Majesty  to  make  certain  demands  of  the  Government 
of  the  United  States. 

Should  Mr.  Seward  ask  for  delay  in  order  that  this  grave  and 
painful  matter  should  be  deliberately  considered  you  will  consent 
to  a  delay  not  exceeding  seven  days.  If  at  the  end  of  that  time  no 
answer  is  given,  or  if  any  other  answer  is  given  except  that  of  a  com 
pliance  with  the  demands  of  Her  Majesty's  Government,  your  lord 
ship  is  instructed  to  leave  Washington  with  all  the  members  of  your 
legation,  bringing  with  you  the  archives  of  the  legation,  and  to  repair 
immediately  to  London.  If,  however,  you  should  be  of  the  opinion 
that  the  requirements  of  Her  Majesty's  Government  are  substantially 
complied  with,  you  may  report  the  facts  to  Her  Majesty's  Govern 
ment  for  their  consideration  and  remain  at  your  post  until' you  receive 
further  orders. 

You  will  communicate  with  Vice-Admiral  Sir  A.  Milne  immediately 
upon  receiving  an  answer  of  the  American  Government  and  you  will 
send  him  a  copy  of  that  answer  together  with  such  observations  as 
you  may  think  fit  to  make.  You  will  also  give  all  the  information 
in  your  power  to  the  governors  of  Canada,  Nova  Scotia,  New  Bruns 
wick,  Jamaica,  Bermuda  and  such  other  of  Her  Majesty's  possessions 
as  may  be  within  your  reach. 

•  •••••••• 

I  am,  &c. 


EAEL  EUSSELL  TO  LOED  LYONS 

Extract  from  a  Private  Letter 

FOREIGN  OFFICE  [LONDON]  ,  December  1, 1861. 
LORD  LYONS,  &c. 
My  Lord : 

.  .  .  The  dispatches  which  were  agreed  to  at  the  cabinet  yesterday 
and  which  I  have  signed  this  morning  impose  upon  you  a  disagree 
able  task.  My  wish  would  be  that  at  your  first  interview  with  Mr. 
Seward  you  should  not  take  my  dispatch  with  you  but  should  prepare 


428        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

him  for  it  and  ask  him  to  settle  with  the  President  and  Cabinet  what 
course  they  would  propose.  The  next  time  you  should  bring  my  dis 
patch  and  read  it  to  him  fully.  If  he  asks  what  will  be  the  consequence 
of  his  refusing  compliance  I  think  you  should  say  that  you  wish  to 
leave  him  and  the  President  quite  free  to  take  their  own  course  and 
that  you  desire  to  abstain  from  anything  like  menace. 
I  am,  &c. 


The  late  Queen  Victoria  and  the  Prince  Consort  have  both 
been  credited,  and  with  justice  doubtless,  with  such  a  modifi 
cation  of  the  policy  of  Earl  Eussell  and  Palmerston  in  this 
emergency  as  we  may  remark  the  fruits  of  in  this  letter  from 
Earl  Russell  to  Lord  Lyons.  A  most  interesting  confirmation 
of  the  influence  of  the  crown  upon  the  phraseology  of  the 
document  has  been  recently  revealed  by  Mr.  Morley  in  his 
Life  of  Gladstone.  He  says- : 

Mr.  Gladstone's  movements  at  this  critical  hour  are  interesting. 
On  November  27,  says  Phillimore,  "  Gladstone  dined  here,  Gladstone 
with  the  account  in  his  pocket  from  the  evening  papers  of  the  cap 
ture  of  the  Southern  envoys  out  of  the  English  mail-ship. ' ' 

The  next  two  nights  he  was  at  court. 

"Nov.  28.— Off  at  6.30  to  Windsor.  The  Queen  and  Prince  spoke 
much  of  the  American  news. 

"Nov.  29  (Friday). — Came  up  to  town  for  the  Cabinet  on  American 
news.  Keturned  to  Windsor  for  dinner,  and  reported  to  Queen  and 
Prince." 

Of  this  important  Cabinet  Mr.  Gladstone  wrote  an  account  to  the 
Duke  of  Argyll,  then  absent  from  London: 

"Dec.  3,  '61.— The  Cabinet  determined  on  Friday  to  ask  repara 
tion,  and  on  Saturday  they  agreed  to  two  dispatches  to  Lord  Lyons, 
of  which  the  one  recited  the  facts,  stated  we  could  not  but  suppose 
the  American  Government  would  of  itself  be  desirous  to  afford  us 
reparation,  and  said  that  in  any  case  we  must  have  the  commissioners 
returned  to  British  protection;  and  (2)  an  apology  or  expression 
of  regret.  The  second  of  these  dispatches  desired  Lyons  to  leave 
within  seven  days  if  the  demands  are  not  complied  with.  I  thought 
and  urged  that  we  should  hear  what  the  Americans  had  to  say  before 
withdrawing  Lyons,  for  I  could  not  feel  sure  that  we  were  at  the 
bottom  of  the  law  of  the  case,  or  could  judge  here  and  now  what 
form  it  would  assume.  But  this  view  did  not  prevail." 


THE  PRINCE  CONSORT'S  EMOLLIENT         429 

We  may  assume  that  Mr.  Gladstone,  in  reporting  these  pro 
ceedings  at  Windsor,  did  not  conceal  his  own  arguments  for 
moderation  which  had  been  overrated.  On  the  following  day 
the  Cabinet  again  met:  "Nov.  30  (Sat.).— Left  Windsor  at 
11.25.  Cabinet  3-5%.  Lord  KusselPs  draft  softened  and 
abridged. "  That  is  to  say,  the  draft  was  brought  nearer, 
though  not  near  enough,  to  the  temper  urged  upon  the  Cabinet 
and  represented  af  court  by  Mr.  Gladstone  the  day  before. 


The  story  of  the  first  of  these  two  critical  dispatches  is  pretty  well 
known : x  how  the  draft  initialled  by  Lord  Russell  was  sent  down  the 
same  night  to  Windsor;  how  the  Prince  Consort— then,  as  it  proved, 
rapidly  sinking  down  into  his  fatal  illness — found  it  somewhat  meagre, 
and  suggested  modifications  and  simplifications;  how  the  Queen  re 
turned  the  draft  with  the  suggestions  in  a  letter  to  the  Prime  Min 
ister;  how  Palmerston  thought  them  excellent,  and  after  remodelling 
the  draft  in  the  more  temperate  spirit  recommended  by  the  Prince, 
though  dropping  at  least  one  irritating  phrase  in  the  Queen's  memo 
randum,  sent  it  back  to  the  Foreign  Office,  whence  it  was  duly  sent 
(on  December  1)  to  Lord  Lyons  at  Washington.  It  seems,  moreover, 
that  a  day's  reflection  had  brought  his  colleagues  round  to  Mr.  Glad 
stone's  mind,  for  Lord  Russell  wrote  to  Lord  Lyvns  a  private  note 
(December  1)  in  effect  instructing  him  to  say  nothing  about  withdraw 
ing  in  seven  days. 

The  British  dispatches  were  delivered  to  Lord  Lyons  at  midnight 
on  December  18 ;  the  reparation  dispatch  was  formally  read  to  Mr. 
Seward  on  the  23d ;  and  on  Christmas  day  Mr.  Lincoln  had  a  meeting 
of  his  Cabinet,  Sumner  was  invited  to  attend,  and  he  read  long  let 
ters  from  Cobden  and  Bright.  "At  all  hazards,"  said  Bright,  "you 
must  not  let  this  matter  grow  to  a  war  with  England.  Even  if 
you  are  right  and  we  are  wrong,  war  will  be  fatal  to  your  idea  of 
restoring  the  Union.  ...  I  implore  you  not,  on  any  feeling  that 
nothing  can  be  conceded,  and  that  England  is  arrogant  and  seeking 
a  quarrel,  to  play  the  game  of  every  enemy  of  your  country. "  A 
French  dispatch  was  also  read.  Seward  and  Sumner  were  in  favor 
of  giving  up  the  men.  The  President,  thinking  of  popular  excite 
ment,  hesitated.  In  the  end,  partly  because  the  case  was  bad  on 
the  merits,  partly  because  they  could  not  afford  to  have  a  second 
great  war  upon  their  hands,  all  came  round  to  Seward 's  view.2 

1  See  Nicolay  and  Hay,  Abraham  Lincoln,  Vol.  V,  p.  28 ;  also  Martin's  Life 
of  the  Prince  Consort. 

*  Quoted  in  substance  from  John  Morley's  Life  of  Gladstone,  Vol.  II,  pp. 
73-75, 


430        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Mr.  Morley,  in  his  Life  of  Gladstone,  commenting  upon 
the  dispatch  of  Earl  Eussell  which  directed  Lyons  to  leave 
Washington  within  seven  days  if  the  demands  were  not  com 
plied  with,  quotes  the  following  remark  of  Mr.  Gladstone : 

"I  thought  and  urged  that  we  should  hear  what  the  Ameri 
cans  had  to  say  before  withdrawing  Lyons,  for  I  could  not  feel 
sure  that  we  were  at  the  bottom  of  the  law  of  the  case,  or  could 
judge  here  and  now  what  form  it  would  assume.  But  this  view 
did  not  prevail. ' ' 

Mr.  Gladstone,  as  we  have  shown,  had  already  conceded  that 
all  the  precedents  of  English  history  sanctioned  the  seizure  of 
the  Confederate  emissaries.  Both  the  Queen  and  Prince 
Albert  were  sure  not  to  be  ignorant  of  the  fact  that,  in  making 
a  casus  belli  of  this  seizure,  England  would  be  making  a  new 
departure  in  her  interpretation  of  the  maritime  law. 

This  hesitation  at  Windsor  as  recorded  by  Mr.  Gladstone 
deserves  to  be  taken  into  account  by  those  who  censure  the 
members  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  Cabinet,  and  Congress,  and  even 
Mr.  Lincoln  himself,  for  insisting  upon  the  authority  of  an 
unbroken  series  of  British  precedents  for  taking  these  emis 
saries  from  the  Trent  and  treating  them  as  traitors  to  their 
Government. 


LOED  LYONS  TO  EARL  EUSSELL 

^WASHINGTON,  December  19,  1861. 

[Received  January  1,  1862.] 
My  Lord: 

The  messenger  Seymour  delivered  to  me  at  11.30  last  night  your 
lordship's  dispatch  of  the  30th  ultimo  specifying  the  reparation  re 
quired  by  Her  Majesty's  Government  for  the  seizure  of  Mr.  Mason 
and  Mr.  Slidell  and  their  secretaries  on  board  the  royal  mail  steamer 
Trent. 

I  waited  on  Mr.  Seward  this  afternoon  at  the  State  Department 
and  acquainted  him  in  general  terms  with  the  tenor  of  that  dispatch. 
I  stated  in  particular— as  nearly  as  possible  in  your  lordship's  words 
—that  the  only  redress  which  could  satisfy  Her  Majesty's  Government 
and  Her  Majesty's  people  would  be  the  immediate  delivery  of  the 
prisoners  to  me,  in  order  that  they  might  again  be  placed  under 


SEWARD'S  EXCUSE  FOR  WILKES  431 

British  protection,  and  moreover  a  suitable  apology  for  the  aggres 
sion  which  had  been  committed.  I  added  that  Her  Majesty's  Gov 
ernment  hoped  that  the  Government  of  the  United  States  would  of  its 
own  accord  offer  this  reparation;  that  it  was  in  order  to  facilitate 
such  an  arrangement  that  I  had  come  to  him  without  any  written 
demand  or  even  any  written  paper  at  all  in  my  hand ;  that  if  there  was 
a  prospect  of  attaining  this  object  I  was  willing  to  be  guided  by  him 
as  to  the  conduct  on  my  part  which  would  render  its  attainment 
most  easy. 

Mr.  Seward  received  my  communication  seriously  and  with  dignity 
but  without  any  manifestations  of  dissatisfaction.  Some  further 
conversation  ensued  in  consequence  of  questions  put  by  him  with  a 
view  to  ascertain  the  exact  character  of  the  dispatch.  At  the  con 
clusion  he  asked  me  to  give  him  till  to-morrow  to  consider  the  ques 
tion  and  to  communicate  with  the  President.  On  the  day  after  he 
should,  he  said,  be  ready  to  express  an  opinion  with  respect  to  the  com 
munication  I  had  made.  In  the  meantime  he  begged  me  to  be  assured 
that  he  was  very  sensible  of  the  friendly  and  conciliatory  manner  in 
which  I  had  made  it. 

I  have,  &c. 


SEWAED  TO  LORD  LYONS 

DEPARTMENT  OF  STATE, 
WASHINGTON,  December  26,  1861. 
Right  Hon.  Lord  Lyons: 

[Mr.  Seward 's  reply  to  Lord  Lyons  was  very  voluminous. 
The  question  of  international  law  raised  by  the  facts  presented 
in  the  report  of  Captain  Wilkes  "involved,"  he  said,  the  fol 
lowing  inquiries : 

1.  Were  the  persons  named  and  their  supposed  dispatches  contra 
band  of  war  ? 

2.  Might  Captain  Wilkes  lawfully  stop  and  search  the  Trent  for 
these  contraband  persons  and  dispatches  ? 

3.  Did  he  exercise  that  right  in  a  proper  and  lawful  manner? 

4.  Having  found  the  contraband  persons  on  board  and  in  presumed 
possession  of  the  contraband  dispatches,  had  he  a  right  to  capture 
the  persons? 


432        KETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

5.  Did  he  exercise  that  right  of  capture  in  the  manner  allowed  and 
recognized  by  the  law  of  nations? 

The  first  four  of  these  questions  Mr.  Seward  decided  in  the 
affirmative.1  The  fifth  he  decided  in  the  negative,  and  that 
the  captives  were  wrongly  held  because  the  Trent  was  not 
taken  into  port  and  properly  condemned  by  a  court  of  ad 
miralty  for  carrying  contraband  of  war.  This  is  made  the 
pretext  for  the  surrender  of  the  prisoners.] 


In  the  present  case  Captain  Wilkes,  after  capturing  contraband 
persons  and  making  prize  of  the  Trent  in  what  seems  to  be  a  perfectly 
lawful  manner,  instead  of  sending  her  into  port  released  her  from  the 
capture  and  permitted  her  to  proceed  with  her  whole  cargo  upon  her 
voyage.  He  thus  effectually  prevented  the  judicial  examination 
which  might  otherwise  have  occurred. 

If  now  the  capture  of  the  contraband  persons  and  the  capture  of 
the  contraband  vessel  are  to  be  regarded  not  as  two  separate  or  dis 
tinct  transactions  under  the  law  of  nations  but  as  one  transaction 
— one  capture  only — then  it  follows  that  the  capture  in  this  case 
was  left  unfinished  or  was  abandoned.  Whether  the  United  States 
have  a  right  to  retain  the  chief  public  benefits  of  it,  namely,  the  cus 
tody  of  the  captured  persons,  on  proving  them  to  be  contraband,  will 
depend  upon  the  preliminary  question  whether  the  leaving  of  the 
transaction  unfinished  was  necessary  or  whether  it  was  unnecessary 
and  therefore  voluntary.  If  it  was  necessary  Great  Britain  as  we  sup 
pose  must  of  course  waive  the  defect  and  the  consequent  failure  of  the 
judicial  remedy.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  not  seen  how  the  United 
States  can  insist  upon  her  waiver  of  that  judicial  remedy  if  the  defect 
of  the  capture  resulted  from  an  act  of  Captain  Wilkes  which  would 
be  a  fault  on  their  own  side. 

Captain  Wilkes  has  presented  to  this  Government  his  reasons  for 
releasing  the  Trent  : 

"I  forbore  to  seize  her"  (says  he)  "in  consequence  of  my  being  so 
reduced  in  officers  and  crew  and  the  derangement  it  would  cause  inno 
cent  persons,  there  being  a  large  number  of  passengers  who  would 
have  been  put  to  great  loss  and  inconvenience  as  well  as  disap 
pointment  from  the  interruption  it  would  have  caused  them  in  not 
being  able  to  join  the  steamer  from  Saint  Thomas  to  Europe.  I  there 
fore  concluded  to  sacrifice  the  interest  of  my  officers  and  crew  in 

1  As  we  have  seen,  it  was  decided  nem.  con.  by  the  law  officers  of  the  .crown 
at  the  first  Cabinet  meeting  on  the  subject,  as  reported  by  Lord  Palmerston 
himself  to  the  Queen. 


SEWARD'S  EXCUSE  FOR  WILKES  433 

the  prize  and  suffer  her  to  proceed  after  the  detention  necessary  to 
effect  the  transfer  of  those  commissioners,  considering  I  had  obtained 
the  important  end  I  had  in  view,  and  which  affected  the  interest  of  our 
country  and  interrupted  the  action  of  the  Confederates. ' ' 

I  shall  consider  first  how  these  reasons  ought  to  affect  the  action 
of  this  Government;  and  secondly  how  they  ought  to  be  expected 
to  affect  the  action  of  Great  Britain. 

The  reasons  are  satisfactory  to  this  Government  so  far  as  Captain 
Wilkes  is  concerned.  It  could  not  desire  that  the  San  Jacinto,  her 
officers  and  crew  should  be  exposed  to  danger  and  loss  by  weakening 
their  number  to  detach  a  prize  crew  to  go  on  board  the  Trent.  Still 
less  could  it  disavow  the  humane  motive  of  preventing  inconveniences, 
losses  and  perhaps  disasters  to  the  several  hundred  innocent  passen 
gers  found  on  board  the  prize  vessel.  Nor  could  this  Government 
conceive  any  ground  for  questioning  the  fact  that  these  reasons  though 
apparently  incongruous  did  operate  in  the  mind  of  Captain  Wilkes 
and  determine  him  to  release  the  Trent.  Human  actions  generally 
proceed  upon  mingled  and  sometimes  conflicting  motives.  He  mea 
sured  the  sacrifices  which  this  decision  would  cost.  It  manifestly 
did  not  occur  to  him,  however,  that  beyond  the  sacrifice  of  the  pri 
vate  interests  (as  he  calls  them)  of  his  officers  and  crew  there  might 
also  be  possibly  a  sacrifice  even  of  the  chief  and  public  object  of 
his  capture,  namely,  the  right  of  his  Government  to  the  custody  and 
disposition  of  the  captured  persons.  The  Government  cannot  cen 
sure  him  for  this  oversight.  It  confesses  that  the  whole  subject  came 
unforeseen  upon  the  Government  as  doubtless  it  did  upon  him.  Its 
present  convictions  upon  the  point  in  question  are  the  result  of  de 
liberate  examination  and  deduction  now  made  and  not  of  any  impres 
sions  previously  formed. 

Nevertheless  the  question  now  is  not  whether  Captain  Wilkes  is  justi 
fied  to  his  Government  in  what  he  did,  but  what  is  the  present  view 
of  the  Government  as  to  the  effect  of  what  he  has  done?  Assuming 
now  for  argument's  sake  only  that  the  release  of  the  Trent  if  volun 
tary  involved  a  waiver  of  the  claim  of  the  Government  to  hold  the 
captured  persons,  the  United  States  in  that  case  could  have  no  hesi 
tation  in  saying  that  the  act  which  has  thus  already  been  approved 
by  the  Government  must  be  allowed  to  draw  its  legal  consequences 
after  it.  It  is  of  the  very  nature  of  a  gift  or  a  charity  that  the 
giver  cannot  after  the  exercise  of  his  benevolence  is  past  recall  or 
modify  its  benefits. 

We  are  thus  brought  directly  to  the  question  whether  we  are  entitled 
to  regard  the  release  of  the  Trent  as  involuntary  or  whether  we  are 
obliged  to  consider  that  it  was  voluntary.  Clearly  the  release  would 
have  been  involuntary  had  it  been  made  solely  upon  the  first  ground 
assigned  for  it  by  Captain  Wilkes,  namely,  the  want  of  a  sufficient 


434       KETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

force  to  send  the  prize  vessel  into  port  for  adjudication.  It  is  not  the 
duty  of  a  captor  to  hazard  his  own  vessel  in  order  to  secure  a  judicial 
examination  to  the  captured  party.  No  large  prize  crew,  however, 
is  legally  necessary,  for  it  is  the  duty  of  the  captured  party  to  ac 
quiesce  and  go  willingly  before  the  tribunal  to  whose  jurisdiction  it 
appeals.  If  the  captured  party  indicate  purposes  to  employ  means 
of  resistance  which  the  captor  cannot  with  probable  safety  to  him 
self  overcome  he  may  properly  leave  the  vessel  to  go  forward  and 
neither  she  nor  the  State  she  represents  can  ever  afterward  justly 
object  that  the  captor  deprived  her  of  the  judicial  remedy  to  which 
she  was  entitled. 

But  the  second  reason  assigned  by  Captain  Wilkes  for  releasing 
the  Trent  differs  from  the  first.  At  best  therefore  it  must  be  held 
that  Captain  Wilkes,  as  he  explains  himself,  acted  from  combined 
sentiments  of  prudence  and  generosity,  and  so  that  the  release  of  the 
prize  vessel  was  not  strictly  necessary  or  involuntary.  Secondly,  how 
ought  we  to  expect  these  explanations  from  Captain  Wilkes  of  his 
reasons  for  leaving  the  capture  incomplete  to  affect  the  action  of  the 
British  Government? 

The  observation  upon  this  point  which  first  occurs  is  that  Captain 
Wilkes '  explanations  were  not  made  to  the  authorities  of  the  captured 
vessel.  If  made  known  to  them  they  might  have  approved  and  taken 
the  release  upon  the  condition  of  waiving  a  judicial  investigation  of 
the  whole  transaction  or  they  might  have  refused  to  accept  the  re 
lease  upon  that  condition. 

But  the  case  is  one  not  with  them  but  with  the  English  Government. 
If  we  claim  that  Great  Britain  ought  not  to  insist  that  a  judicial 
trial  has  been  lost  because  we  voluntarily  released  the  offending  vessel 
out  of  consideration  for  her  innocent  passengers  I  do  not  see  how 
she  is  to  be  bound  to  acquiesce  in  the  decision  which  was  thus  made 
by  us  without  necessity  on  our  part  and  without  knowledge  of  con 
ditions  or  consent  on  her  own.  The  question  between  Great  Britain 
and  ourselves  thus  stated  would  be  a  question  not  of  right  and  of 
law  but  of  favor  to  be  conceded  by  her  to  us  in  return  for  favors 
shown  by  us  to  her,  of  the  value  'of  which  favors  on  both  sides  we 
ourselves  shall  be  the  judge.  Of  course  the  United  States  could  have 
no  thought  of  raising  such  a  question  in  any  case. 

I  trust  that  I  have  shown  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  British  Gov 
ernment  by  a  very  simple  and  natural  statement  of  the  facts  and 
analysis  of  the  law  applicable  to  them  that  this  Government  had 
neither  meditated  nor  practiced  nor  approved  any  deliberate  wrong 
in  the  transaction  to  which  they  have  called  its  attention:  and  on 
the  contrary  that  what  has  happened  has  been  simply  an  inadvertency, 
consisting  iu  a  departure  by  the  naval  officer  free  from  any  wrongful 


SEWARD'S  EXCUSE  FOR  WILKES  435 

motive  from  a  rule  uncertainly  established  and  probably  by  the 
several  parties  concerned  either  imperfectly  understood  or  entirely 
unknown.  For  this  error  the  British  Government  has  a  right  to 
expect  the  same  reparation  that  we  as  an  independent  State  should 
expect  from  Great  Britain  or  from  any  other  friendly  nation  in  a 
similar  case. 

I  have  not  been  unaware  that  in  examining  this  question  I  have 
fallen  into  an  argument  for  what  seems  to  be  the  British  side  of  it 
against  my  own  country.  But  I  am  relieved  from  all  embarrass 
ment  on  that  subject.  I  had  hardly  fallen  into  that  line  of  argument 
when  I  discovered  that  I  was  really  defending  and  maintaining  not 
an  exclusively  British  interest  but  an  old,  honored  and  cherished 
American  cause,  not  upon  British  authorities  but  upon  principles 
that  constitute  a  large  portion  of  the  distinctive  policy  by  which  the 
United  States  have  developed  the  resources  of  a  continent,  and  thus 
becoming  a  considerable  maritime  power  have  won  the  respect  and 
confidence  of  many  nations.  These  principles  were  laid  down  for  us 
in  1804  by  James  Madison  when  Secretary  of  State  in  the  Administra 
tion  of  Thomas  Jefferson  in  instructions  given  to  James  Monroe,  our 
Minister  to  England.  Although  the  case  before  him  concerned  a 
description  of  persons  different  from  those  who  are  incidentally  the 
subject  of  the  present  discussion,  the  ground  he  assumed  then  was  the 
same  I  now  occupy,  and  the  arguments  by  which  he  sustained  himself 
upon  it  have  been  an  inspiration  to  me  in  preparing  this  reply. 

Whenever  (he  says)  property  found  in  a  neutral  vessel  is  supposed 
to  be  liable  on  any  ground  to  capture  and  condemnation  the  rule  in 
all  cases  is  that  the  question  shall  not  be  decided  by  the  captor  but  be 
carried  before  a  legal  tribunal  where  a  regular  trial  may  be  had,  and 
where  the  captor  himself  is  liable  for  damages  for  an  abuse  of  his 
power.  Can  it  be  reasonable  then  or  just  that  a  belligerent  com 
mander  who  is  thus  restricted  and  thus  responsible  in  a  case  of  mere 
property  of  trivial  amount  should  be  permitted  without  recurring 
to  any  tribunal  whatever  to  examine  the  crew  of  a  neutral  vessel1,  to 
decide  the  important  question  of  their  respective  allegiances  and  to 
carry  that  decision  into  execution  by  forcing  every  individual  he 
may  choose  into  a  service  abhorrent  to  his  feelings,  cutting  him  off 
from  his  most  tender  connections,  exposing  his  mind  and  his  person 
to  the  most  humiliating  discipline  and  his  life  itself  to  the  greatest 
danger?  Reason,  justice  and  humanity  unite  in  protesting  against 
so  extravagant  a  proceeding. 

If  I  decide  this  case  in  favor  of  my  own  Government  I  must  dis 
avow  its  most  cherished  principles  and  reverse  and  forever  abandon 
its  essential  policy.  The  country  cannot  afford  the  sacrifice.  If  I 
maintain  those  principles  and  adhere  to  that  policy  I  must  surrender 


436        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

the  case  itself.  It  will  be  seen  therefore  that  this  Government  could 
not  deny  the  justice  of  the  claim  presented  us  in  this  respect  upon  its 
merits.  We  are  asked  to  do  to  the  British  nation  just  what  we  have 
always  insisted  all  nations  ought  to  do  to  us. 

The  claim  of  the  British  Government  is  not  made  in  a  discourteous 
manner.  This  Government  since  its  first  organization  has  never 
used  more  guarded  language  in  a  similar  case. 

In  coming  to  my  conclusion  I  have  not  forgotten  that  if  the  safety 
of  this  Union  required  the  detention  of  the  captured  persons  it  would 
be  the  right  and  duty  of  this  Government  to  detain  them.  But  the 
effectual  check  and  waning  proportions  of  the  existing  insurrection 
as  well  as  the  comparative  unimportance  of  the  captured  persons  them 
selves  when  dispassionately  weighed  happily  forbid  me  from  resorting 
to  that  defense. 

Nor  am  I  unaware  that  American  citizens  are  not  in  any  case  to  be 
unnecessarily  surrendered  for  any  purpose  into  the  keeping  of  a 
foreign  State.  Only  the  captured  persons,  however,  or  others  who  are 
interested  in  them  could  justly  raise  a  question  on  that  ground. 

Nor  have  I  been  tempted  at  all  by  suggestions  that  cases  might  be 
found  in  history  where  Great  Britain  refused  to  yield  to  other  nations, 
and  even  to  ourselves,  claims  like  that  which  is  now  before  us.  Those 
cases  occurred  when  Great  Britain  as  well  as  the  United  States  was 
the  home  of  generations  which  with  all  their  peculiar  interests  and 
passions  have  passed  away.  She  could  in  no  other  way  so  effectually 
disavow  any  such  injury  as  we  think  she  does  by  assuming  now  as 
her  own  the  ground  upon  which  wre  then  stood.  It  would  tell  little 
for  our  own  claims  to  the  character  of  a  just  and  magnanimous  people 
if  we  should  so  far  consent  to  be  guided  by  the  law  of  retaliation  as 
to  lift  up  buried  injuries  from  their  graves  against  what  national 
consistency  and  the  national  conscience  compel  us  to  regard  as  a  claim 
intrinsically  right. 

Putting  behind  me  all  suggestions  of  this  kind  I  prefer  to  express 
my  satisfaction  that,  by  the  adjustment  of  the  present  case  upon  prin 
ciples  confessedly  American  and  yet  as  I  trust  mutually  satisfactory 
to  both  of  the  nations  concerned,  a  question  is  finally  and  rightly 
settled  between  them  which,  heretofore  exhausting  not  only  all  forms 
of  peaceful  discussion  but  also  the  arbitrament  of  war  itself  for  more 
than  half  a  century,  alienated  the  two  countries  from  each  other  and 
perplexed  with  fears  and  apprehensions  all  other  nations. 

The  four  persons  in  question  are  now  held  in  military  custody 
at  Fort  Warren,  in  the  State  of  Massachusetts.  They  will  be  cheer 
fully  liberated.  Your  lordship  will  please  indicate  a  time  and  place 
for  receiving  them. 

I  avail  myself  of  this  occasion  to  offer  to  your  lordship  a  renewed 
assurance  of  my  very  high  consideration. 


HISTORICUS  AND  THE   TRENT  AFFAIR         437 

The  captive  prisoners  were  accordingly  surrendered  under 
the  order  of  the  Secretary  of  State  to  the  British  Government, 
and  the  British  Government  accepted  them,  but  did  not  accept 
as  cheerfully  the  maritime  law  under  cover  of  which  the  sur 
render  was  made. 

Its  objection  will  be  found  very  clearly  stated  in  the  follow 
ing  lines  from  the  pen  of  Sir  William  Vernon  Harcourt,  under 
the  pseudonym  of  ' i  Historicus ' ' : 

In  order  to  constitute  contraband  of  war  it  is  absolutely  essential 
that  two  elements  should  concur,  namely,  a  hostile  quality  and  a  hos 
tile  destination.  If  either  of  these  elements  is  wanting  there  can  be 
no  such  thing  as  contraband. 

Innocent  goods  going  to  a  belligerent  port  are  not  contraband ;  here 
there  is  a  hostile  destination  but  no  hostile  quality.  Hostile  goods, 
such  as  munitions  of  war,  going  to  a  neutral  port  are  not  contraband. 

The  unquestioned  and  unquestionable  neutral  destination  of  the 
Trent  proves  beyond  all  possibility  of  cavil  that  neither  persons  nor 
goods  on  board  of  her  could  be  treated  as  contraband. 

No  doubt  considerable  allowance  ought  to  be  made  for  the  diffi 
culty  in  which  Mr.  Seward  is  placed  by  the  hopeless  endeavor  to 
reconcile  the  action  of  his  Government  in  surrendering  the  prisoners 
with  the  vote  of  thanks  of  Congress  to  Captain  Wilkes. 

If  this  dispatch  could  be  treated  as  a  mere  apologetic  document 
which  was  intended  to  have  no  further  results  than  to  make  an  em 
barrassing  retreat,  we  might  well  connive  at  the  construction  of  a 
golden  bridge  for  a  flying  foe.  But  unfortunately  this  manifesto  of 
the  American  view  of  international  law  is  only  too  likely  to  be  taken 
as  sailing  orders  by  American  captains. 

Had  the  Hague  Tribunal  been  in  function  in  those  days,  the 
counsel  appearing  before  it  on  behalf  of  the  American  Govern 
ment  would  probably  have  raised  the  question  whether  during 
the  first  three  years  of  the  war  England  was  not  a  belligerent 
government,  and  we  may  now  ask,  not  impertinently,  why  she 
paid  us  $15,500,000  for  the  damage  done  to  our  commerce  by 
ships  built  and  equipped  in  her  dockyards,  if  she  was  not 
constructively  such! 

Mr.  J.  Ewing  Eitchie,  in  his  "Life  and  Times  of  Lord  Palm- 
erston,"  after  quoting  from  the  remarks  of  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  on  the  Trent  affair  in  his  farewell  speech  at  Man 
chester,  says: 


438        KETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

We  need  not  go  so  far  as  Mr.  Beecher,  and  defend  the  conduct  of 
Captain  Wilkes  as  sanctioned  by  English  precedent ;  but  the  conduct 
of  Lord  Palmerston  and  the  British  Government  was  certainly  more 
spirited  than  friendly.  There  was  little  danger  of  war  with  America. 
The  Americans  at  that  time  had  quite  enough  to  do ;  nor  were  our  suc 
cesses,  when  we  were  at  war  with  people  of  that  country,  such  as  to 
create  any  desire  in  this  country  again  to  engage  in  an  American  war. 
We  had  gathered  few  laurels  in  American  encounters;  nay,  Canada, 
with  its  vast  and  defenceless  frontier,  supplies  an  additional  motive 
for  desiring  peace  with  our  kinsmen  across  the  Atlantic. 


SEWABD  TO  ADAMS 

Confidential 

DEPARTMENT  OF  STATE, 
WASHINGTON,  December  27, 1861. 
Sir: 

You  will  receive  herewith  a  copy  of  the  correspondence  with  Lord 
Lyons  on  the  subject  of  the  Trent.  The  great  difficulty  in  all  human 
enterprises  consists  in  pursuing  just  and  worthy  objects  persistently 
when  the  interests  and  passions  of  men  avail  themselves  of  accidents 
to  embarrass  our  movements  and  divert  us  from  our  course. 

Nothing  could  have  happened  so  well  calculated  to  electrify  the 
loyal  portion  of  the  American  people  as  the  capture  and  confine 
ment  of  the  four  persons  who  were  taken  from  the  Trent  on  their 
way  to  Europe  to  betray  their  country  into  the  control  of  ambitious 
foreign  States.  But  this  is  no  time  to  be  diverted  from  the  cares 
of  the  Union  into  controversies  with  other  powers,  even  if  just  causes 
for  them  could  be  found.  When  the  affair  happened  there  was  no 
time  for  the  public  mind  to  weigh  against  the  apparent  advantages 
of  the  capture,  the  probable  incompetency  of  the  captured  persons  as 
individuals  to  do  any  considerable  injury  to  our  country  abroad,  much 
less  to  measure  the  dangers  of  collision  between  us  and  foreign  powers 
resulting  from  an  exchange  of  our  own  traditional  position  in  regard 
to  neutral  rights  for  the  British  one— one  which  we  had  so  long  and 
so  consistently  repudiated.  The  Government  as  you  will  already 
have  learned  has  not  yielded  to  any  such  excitement,  but  has  held 
itself  ready  to  meet  and  decide  the  question  upon  its  merits  and  with 
reference  only  to  the  public  welfare  in  its  broadest  and  most  enduring 
relations. 


BLATCHFORD'S  STORY  OF  SEWARD'S  LETTER  439 

The  President  has  adopted  his  decision  with  the  unanimous  assent 
of  his  Cabinet.  We  trust  and  believe  that  a  change  or  at  least  a  pause 
will  come  upon  the  mind  of  Europe  when  it  is  seen  as  it  now  must  be 
that  the  United  States  have  maintained  calmness,  composure  and 
dignity  during  all  the  season  in  which  the  British  people  have  been  so 
intensely  excited,  and  that  in  this  as  in  every  other  case  they  have 
vindicated  not  only  their  consistency  but  their  principles  and  policy 
while  measuring  out  to  Great  Britain  the  justice  which  they  have 
always  claimed  at  her  hands.  The  Union  is  indeed  the  paramount 
interest  of  the  day  but  the  national  prestige  and  character  will  not 
be  unnecessarily  compromised  in  our  efforts  to  maintain  it. 

I  am,  sir,  &c. 


The  painful  suspense  in  which,  despite  our  efforts  to  belittle 
the  perils  of  the  situation,  we  found  ourselves,  was  not,  fortu 
nately,  of  long  duration.  The  next  or  the  succeeding  mail 
brought  Mr.  Seward 's  memorable  letter  declining  all  respon 
sibility  for  the  seizure  of  the  rebel  commissioners  and  provid 
ing  for  their  immediate  transportation  to  their  original 
destination. 

I  will  here  repeat  a  story  told  me  by  the  late  Eichard  M. 
Blatchford,  who  arrived  in  Paris  about  this  time  on  his  way  to 
Kome,  where  he  had  been  commissioned  as  Minister  Eesident 
of  the  United  States.  It  related  to  the  preparation  of  Mr. 
Seward 's  letter,  and,  if  authentic,  as  I  have  no  reason  to  doubt, 
is  worthy  of  being  preserved.  He  said  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
fully  determined  not  to  surrender  the  commissioners.  When 
Mr.  Seward  waited  upon  him  with  Earl  EusselPs  dispatch 
demanding  their  surrender,  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  soon  as  Mr.  Sew 
ard  had  finished  reading  it,  said  promptly  and  decidedly, 
"No."  Mr.  Seward  said  it  was  a  grave  step  to  refuse.  "No 
matter,"  said  the  President;  "I  will  never  give  them  up." 
"Then  I  shall  be  obliged  to  ask  you,  Mr.  President,  to  write 
the  reply  to  Earl  Eussell,"  said  the  Secretary,  "for  the 
strength  of  the  argument  from  our  own  past  policy,  so  far  as 
I  can  see,  is  all  in  favor  of  a  compliance  with  his  demands." 

After  a  short  interval  of  silence,  Mr.  Lincoln  said:  "Very 
well,  I  will  write  a  reply;  but  you  write  also  such  a  reply  as 


440        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

you  think  should  be  made  to  it,  and  come  to  me  with  it  on 
Monday  morning,  when  we  will  read  them  together. ' ' 

At  the  appointed  hour  Mr.  Seward  repaired  to  the  White 
House  with  the  letter  he  had  prepared.  Mr.  Lincoln  asked  him 
to  read  his  letter  first.  Mr.  Seward  read,  the  President  mean 
time  making  no  remark  nor  giving  any  sign  of  the  impression 
it  was  leaving  upon  him.  As  soon  as  Mr.  Seward  had  finished, 
the  President  took  up  the  manuscript  of  the  letter  he  had  pre 
pared,  but,  instead  of  reading  it,  deliberately  threw  the  sheets 
into  the  grate.  Then  turning  to  Mr.  Seward,  he  said,  ' '  That 
argument  is  unanswerable. ' ' 

It  was  that  letter  which  was  finally  adopted  as  the  voice  of 
our  Government  and  which  proved  to  be  a  singularly  accept 
able  expression  of  the  sentiment  of  the  nation. 


JOHN  HEIGHT  TO  BIGELOW 

EOCHDALE,  Jany.  3,  1862. 
Dear  Mr.  Bigelow: 

I  ought  to  have  acknowledged  your  most  kind  letter  sooner 
—but  I  have  felt  almost  incapable  of  writing  while  so  dark  a 
cloud  has  been  over  us.  From  letters  I  have  read  from  you, 
your  Ministers  at  Vienna  &  St.  Petersburg,— and  from  several 
of  your  consuls  &  countrymen  in  England,  I  am  able 
to  hope  that  my  speech  will  have  some  good  effect  in  the 
United  States,  unless  it  be  lost  in  the  confusion  caused  by 
the  hostile  attitude  assumed  by  the  Press  and  Govt.  of  Eng 
land.  It  is  a  great  mistake  to  imagine  that  our  people  are 
against  your  people.  Our  Govt.  is  made  up  of  men  drawn 
from  the  aristocratic  families— it  is  therefore  aristocratic, 
and  from  a  natural  instinct,  it  must  be  hostile  to  your  great 
ness  &  to  the  permanence  of  your  institutions.  Our  rich  men 
take  their  course  mainly  from  the  Aristocracy  to  whom  they 
look  up— and  our  Press,  in  London  especially,  is  directly  in 
fluenced  by  the  Govt.,  and  the  two  sections  of  the  Aristocracy 
for  which  it  writes— we  have  also  our  tremendous  military 
services,  with  all  their  influence  on  the  Govt.  &  on  opinion. 


JOHN  HEIGHT'S  FAITH  IN  LINCOLN  441 

But  we  have  other  and  better  influences— the  town  populations 
—the  non-conformist  congregations,  the  quiet  &  religious  peo 
ple,  and  generally  I  believe  the  working  men— these  have  done 
much  to  put  down  the  war  cry,  and  to  make  a  very  considerable 
demonstration  in  favor  of  moderation,  &  if  needful  of  arbitra 
tion. 

The  feeling  here  is  strongly  in  favor  of  peace,  &  we  are 
hoping  for  good  news  by  the  boat  on  Monday  next.  If  this 
difficulty  is  surmounted,  I  think  the  disposition  here  will  be 
rendered  much  more  favorable  to  the  North  than  it  has  been 
of  late.  The  religious  and  antislavery  element  has  been 
stirred  and  every  week  shows  how  likely  your  struggle  is  to 
be  the  destruction  of  the  slave  system.  In  this  district  the 
cotton  question  is  growing  in  importance  but  has  not  yet 
reached  a  point  at  which  it  may  be  deemed  very  formidable. 
If  we  could  see  progress  in  the  States— if  the  Northern  Slave 
states  could  be  seen  cleared  of  insurgents,  and  if  any  daylight 
were  discernible  thro '  the  gloom,  we  should  go  on  without  any 
great  irritation  for  some  months  longer— but  if  nothing  is 
done  to  give  hope  of  the  contest  coming  to  an  end,  I  fear  Eng 
land  and  France  may  seek  opportunities  of  troubling  you  with 
a  view  to  get  rid  of  the  blockade.  Mr.  Cobden  has  been  ad 
vising  the  voluntary  raising  of  the  blockade.  I  cannot  see 
my  way  to  join  him  in  such  advice— because  I  think  it  would 
be  impossible  to  carry  on  war  without  a  blockade ;  without  con 
stant  disputes  with  this  country  in  respect  of  duties  payable 
at  the  Southern  Ports,  and  of  search  for  contraband  which 
your  ships  of  war  would  require  to  maintain. 

I  am  living  upon  faith— faith  that  God  will  not  permit  the 
perpetuation  of  Slavery  on  your  Continent,  and  that  your 
grand  experiment  of  freedom  and  self  government  will  not 
fail.  I  believe  there  is  no  other  Govt.  in  the  world  that  would 
have  survived  the  perils  which  yours  passed  thro  from  March 
1860  to  April  1861— and  when  I  see  the  order  and  unity  ex 
hibited  in  all  the  Northern  states,  I  cannot  believe  in  the  crash 
which  ignorant  and  evil  minded  men  here  have  foretold  and 
evidently  wish  for. 

I  need  hardly  tell  you  that  Mr.  Cobden  and  I  have  done  all 
we  could  by  writing  our  intimate  friends  in  this  Govt.  to  urge 
them  to  moderation  and  peace.  The  Prime  Minister  is  old,  and 
steeped  in  the  traditions  of  a  past  generation;  he  has  made 


442        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

his  only  reputation  by  the  pretence  that  he  is  plucky  and 
instant  in  the  defence  of  English  honor,  and  he  is  in  that 
condition  just  now  that  a  revival  of  popularity  is  very  need 
ful  for  him.  If  foreign  affairs  are  tranquil,  his  Govt.  must 
break  up.  Bluster  and  occasionally  war  even  have  been 
resorted  to  by  ministers  in  past  times  to  sustain  a  tottering 
Statesman  or  a  falling  party,  and  I  am  not  sure  that  some  of 
our  present  ministers  have  a  morality  superior  to  that  of  their 
predecessors. 

Let  us  hope,  however,  for  good  and  for  peace.  I  have  great 
trust  in  the  calmness  and  moderation  of  your  President,  and 
in  the  solid  wisdom  of  your  Senate.  They  must  baffle  our  war 
mongers,  and  show  that  it  is  not  passion  and  anger  that  move 
them,  and  then  give  to  the  world  an  evidence  of  their  capacity 
to  steer  their  great  ship,  with  its  freight  of  freedom  and  bless 
ings  for  the  whole  human  race,  through  the  stormiest  seas. 

Your  letter  is  very  kind,  and  gave  much  pleasure— I  value 
your  good  opinion  highly— I  am  glad  too  to  know  that  Mrs. 
Bigelow  thinks  I  have  done  some  justice  to  her  Country. 

I  hope  all  good  Englishmen  may  feel  all  good  Americans 
their  friends— as  for  me,  be  it  in  peace  or  war,  I  shall  wish  for 
the  good  of  our  race  that  your  Country  may  withstand  every 
shock,  and  that  our  children  may  see  her  great  and  free  and 
offering  a  refuge  to  the  oppressed  from  every  quarter  of  the 
globe. 

With  my  kind  respects  to  Mrs.  Bigelow,  and  many  thanks  to 
yourself —believe  me  always, 

Very  sincerely  yours 


BIGELOW  TO  SEWAED 

PAKIS,  Jan.  7th,  1862. 
Sir: 

The  official  correspondence  of  the  State  department  com 
municated  to  Congress  with  the  President's  message  did  not 
reach  me  till  the  5th  inst.,  some  ten  days  after  it  reached  the 
minister  at  the  Hague  as  he  informs  me,  and  more  than  a  week 
after  it  was  in  the  hands  of  the  London  journalists. 


PERVERSION  OF  AMERICAN  NEWS  443 

I  bring  the  fact  to  the  notice  of  the  State  department  for  the 
purpose  of  suggesting  a  mode  by  which  I  think  my  usefulness 
may  be  increased. 

Had  I  received  that  correspondence  a  week  earlier  I  could 
have  secured  a  circulation  for  large  portions  of  it  through  the 
French  press  and  I  could  have  placed  the  Editors  here  under 
such  substantial  obligations  as  would  have  given  me  effective 
claims  upon  their  columns  hereafter.  I  could  also  have  had 
the  whole  collection  inserted  in  the  Archives  Diplomatiques— 
the  best  accredited  of  diplomatic  documents  in  Europe— for 
this  month.  I  do  not  despair  of  getting  a  good  deal  of  it  in  the 
February  number  but  it  would  have  been  more  generally  read 
in  diplomatic  circles  if  inserted  a  month  earlier.  I  have  given 
my  copy  for  that  purpose  to  M.  Grenier  the  editor,  who  by 
the  way  is  very  friendly  to  us,  and  disposed  to  be  useful  if  any 
one  will  show  him  how,  consequently  I  have  none  for  the  use 
of  the  Paris  papers,  which  seem,  so  far  as  I  can  learn,  to  have 
taken  such  documents  as  they  have  published  from  the  English 
Journals. 

This  is  unfortunate  in  two  respects.  It  accustoms  the  Paris 
Journals  to  take  the  hues  of  the  London  Press,  which  are  al 
ways  unfavorable  to  us,  and  it  wounds  their  pride  to  have  the 
precedence  in  such  matters  always  given  to  the  English  papers. 
Nothing  would  contribute  more  to  awaken  friendly  feelings 
towards  us  among  the  writers  for  the  Press  here,  than  for 
them  to  be  able  through  the  courtesy  of  our  Government  occa 
sionally  to  bring  the  English  Press  to  Paris,  for  American 
intelligence. 

As  it  is,  the  journals  are  content  with  quoting  the  opinions 
of  the  English  press,  copying  but  few  of  the  documents  and 
treating  at  length  of  none.  This  I  regard  as  a  great  misfor 
tune,  for  the  Press  of  Paris  is  in  a  much  better  condition  than 
any  other  in  Europe  to  do  justice  to  that  correspondence, 
which,  taken  all  in  all,  will  some  day  be  pronounced  by  compe 
tent  authority  the  most  creditable  to  the  nation  that  has  ever 
issued  from  the  State  department  during  any  single  adminis 
tration.  And  the  Paris  press  too  is  the  only  press  competent 
to  neutralize  the  pernicious  influence  of  the  English  journals. 
In  a  few  days  the  correspondence  on  Mexican  affairs  will  be 
here,  discolored  by  the  English  medium  through  which  it  will 
pass.  Had  I  had  the  opportunity  of  giving  it  to  the  journals 


444        RETKOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

here  first  the  impression  it  would  produce  upon  Europe  would 
be  vastly  more  advantageous  to  us.  When  I  give  an  editor  a 
document  I  can  give  him  at  the  same  time  the  light  by  which  it 
is  to  be  read  and  interpreted.  When  he  receives  it  through  an 
English  journal  first,  he  takes  the  English  view  without  hesita 
tion,  in  some  instance  with  satisfaction  because  it  is  a  way  of 
punishing  us  for  treating  him  as  a  secondary  influence.  This 
too  is  the  only  means  I  have  of  placing  the  press  under  obliga 
tions  to  me  and  of  establishing  claims  upon  their  courtesy. 
Mr.  Dayton  does  not  feel  at  liberty  to  use  the  fund  assigned  to 
him,  except  in  the  specific  ways  designated.  Social  influences 
are  necessarily  very  limited  in  their  sphere  of  operation  and  it 
is  therefore  of  importance  that  the  most  be  made  of  the 
"news"  which  the  department  has  to  communicate. 

It  is  from  the  conviction  that  I  can  be  most  useful  to  my 
government  in  this  way,  rather  than  from  a  desire  to  increase 
my  labor  and  responsibilities,  that  I  venture  to  suggest  that 
documents  of  interest  abroad  which  are  likely  to  be  given  to 
the  public  before  they  could  reach  Europe  and  return,  be  sent 
to  me  in  manuscript  or  in  early  proof;  if  in  print,  fifteen  or 
twenty  copies,  for  I  would  like  to  supply  the  leading  journals 
not  only  here  but  the  correspondents  of  the  leading  journals 
in  Belgium  and  in  Germany,  several  of  whom  have  already 
expressed  to  me  a  desire  to  be  turned  to  account  in  this  way. 
With  facilities  of  this  sort  I  can  win  the  confidence  of  every 
influential  journalist  here,  the  fruit  of  which  I  am  sure  would 
soon  be  apparent  in  my  correspondence. 

I  am,  Sir,  yours  very  Respectfully 


SEWAED  TO  BIGELOW 

Unofficial 

WASHINGTON,  January  10,  1862. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

I  thank  you  for  your  letter  of  the  23d  of  December.  It  came 
in  good  time  to  assist  me  in  repressing  sentiments  and  appre 
hensions  about  France,  which  at  any  time  would  be  unwise,  but 
in  this  crisis  are  peculiarly  unfortunate  if  groundless. 


GOVERNOR  MORGAN  ON  THE  SITUATION      445 

We  have  made  a  good  beginning  at  Murfreesboro,  and  we 
are,  I  hope,  not  far  from  victory  in  other  quarters,  which 
must  tell.  We  have  too  much  party,  and  too  little  patriotism, 
but  all  things  considered  perhaps  are  as  sound  as  any  nation 
ever  is  under  such  trials. 

What  is  strange  is  that  while  on  all  sides  we  have  fears  and 
alarms,  the  general  tone  of  national  sentiment  is  firmer  than 
heretofore.  Perhaps  we  are  getting  used  to  our  misfortunes 
and  dangers. 

Faithfully  yours 


The  writer  of  the  following  letter  was  Governor  of  the  State 
of  New  York;  he  had  been  State  Senator,  and  subsequently 
was  chosen  a  Senator  of  the  United  States.  He  was  also  head 
of  the  prominent  commercial  house  of  E.  D.  Morgan  &  Co. 
President  Lincoln  urged  him  to  accept  a  position  in  his  Cabi 
net  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  which  he  declined.  He  was 
a  close  political  friend  of  Secretary  Seward.  His  letter  was 
in  reply  to  a  warning  I  had  sent  him  in  regard  to  schemes  on 
foot  for  an  attack  on  New  York  City  by  the  Confederates,  of 
which  menaced  peril  to  that  city,  more  was  afterwards  dis 
closed. 


GOVEBNOE  E.  D.  MOEGAN  TO  BTGELOW 

ALBANY,  January  12,  1862. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

It  is  quite  time  that  you  should  have  an  acknowledgment 
of  your  valuable  letters  to  me.  The  last  one  dated  8th  ultimo 
came  to  hand  while  I  was  making  two  kinds  of  preparation. 
One  for  the  Legislature,  then  soon  to  convene,  the  other  to 
prevent  warships  from  entering  the  harbor  of  New  York. 
I  think  you  will  excuse  me  under  the  circumstances  for  my  ap 
parent  inattention.  Mason  and  Slidell  having  been  given  up 
to  Great  Britain  I  suppose  we  ought  to  expect  a  little  time  for 
reflection,  before  any  new  demand  shall  be  made  from  that 
quarter,  although  the  Tribune  advises  foreign  nations  that  if 


446        KETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

they  have  any  little  grievances  with  us  it  is  a  favorable  time 
to  bring  them  forward  for  settlement. 

We  are  very  poorly  supplied  with  guns,  and  with  ammuni 
tion  at  the  fortifications  in  New  York  Harbor;  and  upon  the 
Lakes  we  have  nothing.  Nor  is  there  any  prospect  that  Con 
gress  will  do  any  thing  effective  for  some  time  to  come.  There 
appears  to  be  much  dissatisfaction  with  General  McClellan  in 
Congress,  and  they  do  not  hesitate  to  give  expression  to  their 
views.  There  is  constant  grumbling  that  our  armies  do  not 
accomplish  more,  and  there  is  a  powerful  abolition  feeling  in 
and  out  of  Congress.  They  would  favor  instant  Emancipation, 
and  they  represent  and  apparently  believe  that  the  war  is 
never  to  be  ended  only  as  we  strike  at  the  root  of  slaveholding. 
Our  situation  is  a  very  precarious  one.  We  may  have  a  suc 
cess  that  will  turn  the  fate  of  the  conspirators  suddenly,  and 
peace  thereby  be  obtained  in  a  few  weeks.  But  I  think  it  is 
more  than  probable  that  the  war  will  continue  through  the 
greater  part  of  the  year.  I  hope  it  will  be  ended  before  the 
period  of  my  retirement  in  December,  and  I  believe  it  will. 

The  Legislature  met  on  the  7th  but  have  thus  far  hardly 
become  acquainted  with  their  duties.  Mr.  Speaker  Kaymond  l 
proposes  to  appoint  his  committees  on  the  14th,  after  which  I 
think  they  will  move,  and  become  a  working  body. 

There  is  an  improvement  in  both  branches,  most  marked  in 
the  Senate.  You  may  have  noticed  my  recommendations  as  to 
re-organizing  the  militia  and  defending  the  sea  and  lake  ports. 
I  intend  to  urge  this  upon  the  Committees  regardless  of  Con 
gress,  for  the  general  government  has  its  hands  full  and  the 
state  must  take  care  of  itself.2  There  is  much  that  is  wrong  in 
the  management  of  affairs  at  Washington,  arising  mainly  as 
I  think  from  incompetency  to  grapple  with  and  to  terminate 
the  contest  promptly.  The  war  is  awfully  expensive,  and  the 

1  Then  also  editor  of  the  New  York  Times. 

3  The  May  previous  Governor  Dennison  of  Ohio,  as  previously  stated, 
had  telegraphed  to  Governor  Morgan  to  meet  the  governors  of  Pennsylvania, 
Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan  and  Wisconsin  at  Cleveland,  or  send  a 
representative,  to  consult  about  the  defence  of  the  States  lying  on  the  Ohio 
River.  Governor  Morgan  said  he  could  not  leave  Albany  then  and  re 
quested  me  to  go  in  his  place,  which  I  did.  The  immediate  result  of  our 
meeting  was  practically  a  circular  from  Mr.  Seward  notifying  the  border 
States  that  they  would  have  to  depend,  for  the  time  at  least,  for  their 
defence  upon  themselves;  that  the  Government  at  Washington  had  its  hands 
fully  occupied  in  protecting  the  seat  of  government. 


RUSSELL  CRITICISES  McCLELLAN'S   TACTICS     447 

government  is  not  now  paying  its  contractors.  There  will  very 
soon  be  great  complaint  on  this  score.  The  President  is  faith 
ful  and  exerting  himself  properly  for  the  restoration  of  peace 
upon  the  broad  basis  of  the  constitution.  The  Cabinet  are  not 
I  think  a  unit  upon  the  policy  to  be  pursued,  and  it  is  very 
evident  that  they  leave  undone  much  that  ought  to  be  done, 
even  if  they  do  not  some  things  that  ought  not  to  be  done.  All 
this  however  is  to  be  expected  and  as  far  as  possible  to  be  over 
looked. 

Sincerely  yours 


W.  H.  EUSSELL  TO  BIGELOW 

NEW  YOKK  HOTEL,  N.  Y.,  Jany.  16, 1862. 
My  dear  Big  slow  : 

Among  many  grievous  faults  I  do  not  include  indifference  to 
the  friendship  of  those  whom  I  esteem,  and  therefore  I  accuse 
myself  of  remissness  in  putting  off  for  a  few  days  the  reply 
which  your  kind  letter  of  Nov.  10th  should  have  received  at 
once,  because  it  may  look  like  indifference  to  a  correspondent 
on  whose  good  will  I  set  much  value.  The  delay  has  been 
augmented  by  a  severe  hint  of  chills  and  fever— of  the  which 
gay  nothing  I  pray  you,  lest  the  news  should  come  to  the  ears 
of  my  wife.  Since  you  wrote  a  great  cloud  has  arisen  and 
passed  away,  and  though  the  sky  is  stormy  the  danger  from 
that  squall  has  been  averted.  You  will  probably  soon  after 
this  reaches  you  see  the  new  "Minister"  Mr.  Slidell  perambu 
lating  the  Boulevards.  If  in  November  last  you  were  tired  of 
hearing  of  what  the  army  and  navy  were  going  to  do,  you  must 
now  be  in  the  last  stage  of  ennui  and  fatigue.  But  if  that  sen 
sation  extends  itself  to  France  and  England  it  will  become 
dangerous  indeed  and  I  don't  see  how  the  extension  is  to  be 
averted.  If  ever  a  nation  was  kept  alive  by  hopes  and  prom 
ises;  by  the  evidence  of  things  hoped  for,  the  substance  of 
things  not  seen,  it  has  been  the  population  of  the  United  States. 
But  words  are  not  fattening  or  even  nutritious,  and  I  see 
evident  signs  of  maceration.  Had  McClellan,  early  in  Decem 
ber,  left  25,000  men  in  the  works  defending  Alexandria  and 


448        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

the  passages  to  Washington,  broken  up  that  vast  wooden  camp 
of  his;  made  his  army  mobile,  and  marched  right  round  the 
enemy's  left,  he  could,  /  think,  have  forced  him  out  of  his 
lines  and  engaged  him  in  the  open  with  some  chance  of  success. 
Now  movement  is  impossible!  The  works  are  approaching 
the  Crimean  type  as  I  prophesied  they  would,  three  months 
ago.  All  the  talk  about  the  folds  of  the  boa  constrictor,  etc., 
is  rubbish.  Buell  will  not  be  able  to  move  in  Kentucky  nor 
will  Halleck,  I  think,  succeed  in  forcing  his  way  down  the 
Mississippi.  Sherman's  miserable  delay  and  incapacity  at 
Port  Eoyal  destroyed  the  whole  of  the  prestige  of  that  ex 
pedition,  and  unless  Burnside  does  better,  these  tentatives 
will  only  irritate  like  fly  blisters.  I  begin  to  think  the  West 
Pointers  are  mere  pedants  and  that  you  might  as  well  think 
to  make  generals  out  of  the  teachers  and  professors  at  Wool 
wich,  as  to  employ  mere  theorists  who  have  never  handled 
men  in  the  field.  Since  Ball's  Bluff  I  have  lost  faith  in  Mc- 
Clellan.  I  think  McD.  infinitely  superior  to  him,  tho'  still 
admitting  McC.  did  much  in  licking  the  cubs  into  the  shape  of 
soldiers.  It  's  nothing  to  the  purpose  to  say  the  South  has  no 
better.  They  are  on  the  defensive  and  have  taken  up  good 
positions  on  their  own  ground.  Delay  is  crushing  out  the  life 
of  the  North  under  an  expenditure  without  precedent  or  paral 
lel.  I  would  rather  have  50,000  good  French  or  English 
troops  than  the  one  half  million  who  are  sucking  up  the  blood 
of  the  States  and  doing  nothing.  I  am  of  opinion  now  as 
always  that  if  the  North  puts  forth  all  its  strength  it  can  make 
a  Poland  of  the  South,  but  it  can  only  do  so  by  the  use  of  all 
that  strength  and  in  a  legitimate  manner;  and  rapidity  of 
action  is  one  of  the  greatest  elements  of  its  power.  The  defeat 
of  Manassas  paralyzes  Northern  armies  and  councils.  The 
President  seems  only  to  look  at  Kentucky  and  to  think  only  of 
conciliating  the  democrats,  whose  anger  and  opposition  he 
deprecates,  by  the  sacrifice  of  Cameron.  Seward  apes  the  craft 
of  Eichelieu  and  succeeds  only  in  gaining  the  dislike  of  his  old 
friends,  whilst  he  does  not  in  the  least  degree  mitigate  the 
wrath  of  his  ancient  foes.  As  to  "the  people,"  I  don't  know 
where  to  find  them,  what  to  think  of  them,  what  they  do— what 
they  think  of.  Congress  seems  afraid  to  tax  them;  to  lay  on 
more  duties  is  to  milk  a  dried  teat— and  the  army  to  my  eyes 
is  the  sole  substantial  thing  left  in  the  country  at  present— e 
pur  non  si  muove—  I  have  run  out  with  my  crudities— wife 


THE   CHARLESTON  HARBOR  GRIEVANCE       449 

still  invalid.    Do  give  my  best  regards  to  your  wife.    Tell  her 
the  devil  is  not  so  black  as  he  is  painted— even  in  the  New 
York  Herald. 
Yours  ever,  my  dear  Bigelow,  no  matter  what  comes 


THE  CHARLESTON  HARBOE  GRIEVANCE 

Grievously  disappointed  in  finding  that  the  Trent  affair 
had  not  resulted  in  a  rupture  with  Great  Britain,  the  Con 
federates  and  their  alien  sympathizers  besieged  the  British 
Foreign  Office  with  divers  other  complaints,  each  of  which  in 
turn  was  urged  as  a  sufficient  pretext  for  the  English  Gov 
ernment  to  intervene  and  compel  a  cessation  of  hostilities  on 
the  basis  of  a  division  of  the  Union.  They  denounced  the  chok 
ing  up  of  the  entrance  of  Charleston  harl^or  with  sunken  ships 
as  barbarous ;  said  the  war  was  waged  by  the  Northern  States 
for  political  and  territorial  dominion;  that  the  extinction  or 
limitation  of  slavery  with  them  was  of  altogether  secondary 
consideration  (a  view  to  which  Earl  Eussell  gave  currency, 
though  it  is  difficult  to  believe  he  could  ever  have  seriously 
adopted  it) ;  that  it  was  a  war  of  the  Northern  protectionists 
against  the  Southern  free-traders;  that  our  blockade  was  in 
effective,  and  its  most  inconvenient  results  were  borne  by  the 
cotton-manufacturers  of  Europe.  These  facts  will  serve  to 
account  for  the  appearance  here  of  the  following  letter  from 
D.  Forbes  Campbell  to  the  Paris  correspondent  of  the  London 
Morning  Post,  and  the  succeeding  letter  which  appeared  in 
the  Post  a  day  or  two  after  it  bears  date.  It  was  written  at 
the  request  of  the  Paris  correspondent  of  that  print.  The 
reader  may  expect  to  hear  again  of  this  Mr.  Campbell. 


D.  FORBES  CAMPBELL  TO  THE  PARIS  CORRESPONDENT 
OF  THE  LONDON  MOKNING  POST 

45  DOVER  STREET, 
LONDON,  16  January,  1862. 
My  dear  Brown: 

How  comes  it  that  you  have  never  alluded  in  your  correspondence 
to  the  Yankee   doings  in   Charleston  harbour  and  the  indignation 


450       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

thereat  roused  in  France?  Upon  inquiry  you  will  find  that  fully 
three  weeks  ago,  France  and  England,  separately,  addressed  the 
strongest  possible  remonstrances  to  the  government  at  Washington 
against  the  Vandal-like  act,  then  in  contemplation.  It  has  been  con 
summated  in  spite  of  our  remonstrances.  The  foregoing  I  give  you 
for  a  fact.  I  learn  further  from  an  excellent  quarter,  that  instruc 
tions  have  gone  to  M.  Mercier,  to  notify  the  Washington  govern 
ment  that  France  can  no  longer  recognize  the  blockade  of  the  South 
ern  ports— that  the  blocking  up  of  the  harbor  of  Charleston  was 
uncalled  for  had  the  blockade  been  "effective."  England  approves  of 
this  and  will  back  up  France.  The  lead  however  will,  on  the  present 
occasion,  be  taken  by  the  Emperor.  It  is  said  too  that  H.  M.  will  in 
his  speech,  on  the  27th  instant,  denounce  the  barbarous  mode  of 
warfare  adopted  by  the  North,  and  proclaim  the  blockade  no  longer 
binding  on  France.  What  joy  such  an  announcement  will  occasion 
in  Manchester  and  other  places  now  sorely  tried  by  the  cotton  famine. 

The  enclosed  from  the  Herald  of  6th  inst.  is  the  programme  of 
the  Conservative  party  on  the  American  question.  The  party  can 
marshal  314  men,  at  a  division,  and  as  127  liberals  and  radicals  (some 
of  them  good  speakers  and  men  of  weight)  are  pledged  to  support 
a  motion  for  the  immediate  recognition  of  the  Confederate  States 
and  the  raising  of  the  paper  blockade,  the  Ministry  will  be  beaten  if 
they  do  not  make  a  virtue  of  a  necessity  and  anticipate,  the  action 
of  Parliament.  The  motion  in  question  will  be  made  and  seconded 
by  advanced  liberals  and  supported  by  the  conservatives  "en  masse." 

Make  what  use  you  like  of  the  preceding. 

Do  you  know  whether  M.  Fould  has  determined  to  raise  a  loan? 
If  you  do,  and  can  give  me  the  figure  and  times  privately  by  Monday 
morning 's  post,  the  information  might  put  something  into  both  our 
pockets.  Of  course  you  have  seen  Sir  Robert  M.P.  and  heard  his 
"veni,  vidi,  vici."  Was  it  he  who  pitched  into  Lord  Cowley  so  hard, 
the  other  morning  in  the  Times  f 

Yours  sincerely 


To  facilitate  the  blockade  of  Charleston,  our  Government 
had  found  it  an  economy  to  sink  one  or  more  vessels  on  the 
bar  of  the  harbor.  The  Confederates  in  Europe  availed  them 
selves  of  this  fact  to  raise  a  howl  against  our  Government  for 
an  act  which,  they  persuaded  not  a  few  of  the  writers  for  the 
European  press,  was  a  violation  of  the  law  of  nations  and  a 
death-blow  aimed  at  the  very  existence  of  the  chief  commer 
cial  city  of  South  Carolina. 


THE  BLOCKADE   OF  CHARLESTON  HARBOR      451 

In  order  to  put  the  statesmen  of  Europe  on  their  guard 
against  giving  any  encouragement  to  this  stupid  cry,  I  pre 
pared  the  following  letters,  to  which  I  thought  it  would  prob 
ably  be  more  difficult  for  the  official  organ  of  the  Government 
to  refuse  its  hospitality  than  for  other  journals  subject  to 
censorship. 


BIGELOW  TO  THE  LONDON  MORNING  POST 

PARIS,  Jan.  16  [1862]. 
My  dear  Friend, 

I  received  your  congratulations  upon  the  peaceful  termina 
tion  of  the  Trent  controversy  with  great  pleasure,  the  greater 
because  I  know  that  in  all  you  said  you  were  sincere — that  you 
really  desire  peace.  If  I  have  seemed  tardy  in  acknowledging 
your  favour  it  was  not  because  I  did  not  enter  with  you  into 
the  joy  which  the  prospect  of  a  continuance  of  friendship  be 
tween  our  two  Governments  should  inspire,  but  because  I  did 
not  see  so  distinctly  as  you  seemed  to,  the  bow  of  promise  in 
the  clouds.  Subsequent  events  have  confirmed  my  misgiv 
ings.  From  every  quarter  indications  are  reaching  me  which, 
whatever  people  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  may  say,  will  be 
construed  by  my  countrymen  into  a  determination  to  fix  a 
quarrel  of  just  sufficient  moment  upon  us  to  furnish  a  pretext 
for  violating  our  blockade.  I  have  reason  to  suspect  that  both 
your  Government  and  this  have  remonstrated  with  the  Gov 
ernment  of  the  United  States  against  the  means  we  have 
employed  to  close  the  harbour  of  Charleston.  It  is  also  pretty 
certain  that  the  Government  of  her  Majesty  is  lending  a  will 
ing  hand  to  Parliamentary  combinations  having  in  view  the 
violation  of  our  blockade,  on  the  ground  that  by  sinking  ships 
at  the  mouth  of  Charleston  harbour  we  have  practically  ad 
mitted  the  blockade  to  have  been  ineffective,  and  therefore  not 
entitled  to  respect.  My  apprehension  now  is  that  your  Gov 
ernment,  leading  or  following  that  of  France,  may  adopt  such 
a  policy.  If  so,  then  war  is  the  prompt  and  inevitable  con 
sequence.  Nothing  that  the  friends  of  peace  in  either  country 
could  do  would  prevent  it.  Our  people  would  see  in  such  a 


452        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

proceeding  a  determination  on  the  part  of  your  Government, 
strengthened  rather  than  weakened  by  our  recent  concessions 
in  the  interests  of  peace,  to  compel  us  to  raise  the  blockade  of 
the  Confederate  ports.  No  one  could  persuade  my  country 
men  after  that  that  anything  we  could  do  would  secure  your 
friendship  unless  coupled  with  the  privilege  of  buying  cotton 
in  the  Southern  ports ;  and  though  we  drink  ever  so  far  lower 
down  the  stream  than  you,  that  we  will  not  be  accused  of 
dirtying  the  water,  just  so  long  as  your  need  of  cotton  remains 
unsatisfied.  The  moment  what  is  now  a  suspicion  in  America 
becomes  a  conviction,  as  it  would  in  the  contingency  here 
suggested,  I  am  sure  that  the  United  States  would  resist  as 
one  man,  and  with  a  desperation  of  which,  as  yet,  you  have 
seen  no  parallel  on  that  continent. 

Nor  could  I,  in  my  conscience,  advise  them  to  do  otherwise. 
It  would  present  one  of  those  occasions  when  a  nation  shows 
whether  it  is  fit  to  be  trusted  with  the  ark  of  civilisation,  and 
if  our  people  did  not  spontaneously  "pledge  their  lives,  their 
fortunes,  and  their  sacred  honours"  in  defence  of  their  con 
stitution  and  Government  in  such  a  crisis,  future  historians 
would  pronounce  them  unworthy  of  the  place  in  history  which 
their  ancestors  have  made  for  them. 

Those  who  find  no  provocation  or  wrong  sufficient  to  justify 
war— and  I  know  there  are  very  conscientious  people  who 
make  such  pretensions— may  logically  enough  regard  the 
choking  up  of  the  harbour  of  Charleston  as  an  act  of  bar 
barism,  but  for  those  who  think  it  ever  proper  to  resort  to 
what  Cardinal  Eichelieu  called  the  ultima  ratio  regum,  it  is 
the  most  puerile  sentimentalism  in  the  world  to  pretend  that 
there  was  any  special  rigour  in  that  proceeding.  Even  had  we 
contemplated  the  utter  destruction  of  the  harbour  by  sinking 
those  ships,  than  which  nothing  was  further  from  our 
thoughts,  the  history  of  European  States  would  have  fur 
nished  us  with  abundant  precedents  for  the  step.  It  was  by 
precisely  similar  means  that  Eichelieu,  in  1628,  put  down  the 
Eochellois  rebellion,  which,  like  ours,  was  stimulated,  if  not 
sustained,  by  Great  Britain,  and  which,  like  this  pro-slavery 
rebellion,  was  maintained  with  a  fanaticism  equally  regard 
less  of  any  proper  adaptation  of  means  to  ends.  Eichelieu 
constructed  a  dyke  of  sunken  ships  across  the  harbour  of 
Bochelle  over  4000  feet  long,  and,  with  its  aid,  accomplished 


THE  BLOCKADE  OF  CHARLESTON  HARBOR      453 

the  reduction  of  a  city  which  had  withstood  seven  previous 
sieges.  I  am  aware  that  the  laws  of  war  have  somewhat 
changed  since  the  days  of  Louis  XIII.,  and,  I  trust,  for  the 
better,  but  this  act  of  the  great  Cardinal  Richelieu  is  not  with 
out  competent  defenders  in  our  generation.  M.  Quatrefages, 
a  name  well  known  to  the  scientific  world,  and  withal  a  devoted 
Protestant,  in  his  "Souvenirs  d'un  Naturaliste, "  published  so 
recently  as  1854,  gives  an  account  of  this  dyke,  and  says:— 
"La  Eochelle  avait  incontestablement  pour  elle  le  droit 
ancien :  le  cardinal  pouvait  invoquer  le  droit  nouveau,  et  peut- 
etre  est-il  permit  de  dire  que  dans  ce  sanglant  conflit  Pattaque 
et  la  defense  furent  egalement  legitimes."  In  the  same  sense 
is  the  remark  with  which  Henri  Martin  closes  his  picturesque 
recital  of  that  memorable  siege,  and  M.  Martin  will  not  be 
suspected  of  a  disposition  to  apologise  for  arbitrary  or  des 
potic  measures,  whether  of  prelate  or  monarch.  ' '  Eichelieu, ' ' 
says  he,  "etait  reste  treize  mois  sur  ces  plages,  qui  avaient 
devore,  depuis  la  descente  des  Anglais  en  Ee,  40,000,000  livres 
et  bien  des  milliers  d'hommes,  tout  cela  pour  faire  detruire  par 
la  France  une  des  forces  de  France;  fatale  necessite!  lutte 
mortelle  ou  Pon  ne  peut  faire  un  crime  au  vaincus  de  sa  resis 
tance,  ni  au  vainqueur  de  sa  victoire." 

But  this  mode  of  warfare  is  not  strange  to  more  recent 
times,  nor  to  your  own  annals.  Eussia  did  not  hesitate  to 
resort  to  this  method  of  defending  Sebastopol  from  the  inva 
sion  of  a  British  fleet  during  the  Crimean  war. 

It  is  now  known  that  orders  were  issued  by  the  British  Ad 
miralty  to  shut  up  the  fleet  of  Napoleon  I.  at  Boulogne,  in 
1804,  by  sinking  ships  at  its  entrance,  and  that  on  the  evacua 
tion  of  Alexandria  in  1807  your  admiral  sank  five  vessels 
laden  with  stone  where  it  was  supposed  they  would  prove  an 
effectual  and  permanent  obstacle  to  navigation.  In  Lord  Dun- 
donald's  "Autobiography  of  a  Seaman"  I  am  told  there  is  a 
letter  addressed  by  that  gallant  nobleman  in  1809  to  Lord 
Mulgrave,  then  first  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  in  which  he 
recommends  a  similar  treatment  for  the  anchorage  of  Aix. 

But  in  what  respect  is  it  more  barbarous  to  choke  up  a  har 
bour  than  to  destroy  populous  cities?  The  allied  army  did 
what  it  could  to  destroy  Sebastopol,  and  but  for  its  capitula 
tion  the  destruction  would  have  been  complete.  More  recently 
your  army  in  India  was  invoked  by  the  leading  metropolitan 


454       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

press  in  London  to  raze  the  city  of  Delhi  'to  the  ground  and 
1  i  sow  it  with  salt. ' ' 

All  sieges  and  all  wars  have  been  conducted  in  pretty  much 
the  same  spirit  towards  cities  or  ports  that  have  been  found 
to  occupy  important  strategic  positions. 

But  is  it  not  the  superlative  of  nonsense  to  talk  of  the 
barbarism  of  closing  up  a  port  with  stone  while  defending  the 
sacrifice  of  whole  hecatombs  of  human  lives  on  the  field  of 
battle?  Which  would  have  been  the  greater  enormity,  sup 
posing  the  motive  to  have  been  the  same,  totally  to  ruin  the 
harbour  of  Sebastopol,  or  to  take  the  thousands  of  lives  sacri 
ficed  in  its  siege  and  defence?  Do  you  answer  that  the  shut 
ting  up  of  a  harbour  is  a  permanent  loss  to  all  the  world?  But 
were  not  the  lives  sacrificed  in  the  Crimea  or  in  India  a  much 
more  permanent  loss  to  the  world,  as  well  as  to  themselves 
and  their  kindred! 

But  it  is  a  weak  invention  of  an  enemy  to  pretend  that  our 
Government  has  been  destroying  Charleston  harbour.  The 
channel  to  that  city  can  be  opened  and  put  in  a  better  condition 
than  it  ever  was  before,  in  three  months,  at  less  expense  than 
was  incurred  in  buying  the  ships,  and  loading  and  sinking 
them  where  they  now  lie.  The  Confederates,  I  know,  can  not 
do  it,  and  therein  may  be  found  a  pregnant  commentary  upon 
the  effects  of  slavery  in  paralysing  mechanical  genius;  but 
there  is  no  large  seaport  in  the  North  that  cannot  furnish  the 
machinery  requisite  to  clear  the  harbour  of  Charleston  in  90 
days  at  much  less  expense  than  would  be  incurred  in  keeping 
up  the  blockade  with  floating  vessels. 

The  channel  is  very  shallow,  as  every  one  knows;  none  of 
the  sunken  vessels  are  hulls  under— in  this  respect  differing 
widely  from  the  dyke  at  Sebastopol,  where  the  vessels  were 
sunk  in  over  70  feet  of  water— and  all  the  washing  of  sand 
that  can  take  place  cannot  possibly  render  their  removal  in 
the  least  degree  problematical  whenever  the  city  of  Charleston 
becomes  entitled  to  commercial  intercourse  again  with  the 
rest  of  the  world. 

Till  then,  if  England  would  consult  her  own  interests,  or 
those  of  South  Carolina,  she  will  leave  Charleston  to  the 
discipline  of  her  rightful  government.  At.  all  events,  she  must 
look  up  some  better  evidence  than  this  or  any  other  that  has 
yet  been  advanced  to  show  that  our  blockade  is  not  effective. 


THE  BLOCKADE   OF   CHARLESTON  HARBOR      455 

The  fact  is— and  I  am  sure  what  I  say  is  susceptible  of  demon 
stration 
ist.  That  there  never  was  so  extensive  a  blockade  attempted 
before  by  any  nation ;  and 

2d.  That  there  never  was  a  blockade  embracing  more  than 
a  single  harbour  more  efficient. 

Every  port  is  faithfully  watched  by  two  or  more  vessels  of 
war  along  a  sea-coast  of  more  than  1500  miles,  and  the  best 
evidence  of  their  vigilance  is  the  enormously  high  price  at 
which  all  foreign  commodities  are  ruling  in  the  Southern  mar 
kets.  If  there  were  not  a  dozen  vessels  occupied  in  the 
blockade  of  the  whole  Confederate  coast,  the  Southern  prices 
current  would  furnish  conclusive  evidence  of  its  efficiency. 
Compare  it  with  your  blockade  in  the  Baltic,  or  more  recently 
in  the  Chinese  seas— contrast  the  relative  advance  in  prices 
of  imported  commodities  in  the  two  countries,  and  then  you 
will  comprehend  the  folly  of  impeaching  it. 

But  why  was  not  some  of  this  solicitude  about  the  efficiency 
of  our  blockade  exhibited  when  Turkey  declared  a  long  line  of 
her  coast  under  blockade  during  the  past  year  with  only  three 
steamers,  and  they  more  than  half  of  the  time  unable  to  move 
for  want  of  coal,  which  the  Government  had  neither  the  money 
nor  credit  necessary  to  supply?  No  complaints  of  this  block 
ade  have  been  made,  and  England  and  France  have  both 
respected  it  faithfully.  Be  sure,  my  friend,  the  motive  which 
may  induce  your  Government  to  require  so  much  more  from 
America  than  from  Turkey  will  not  pass  unchallenged;  and, 
if  you  interfere  with  us  on  any  such  pretence,  you  will  lose,  as 
a  nation,  more  moral  power  in  the  world  than  you  can  possibly 
gain  of  any  other  kind. 

The  fact  is,  if  England  breaks  this  blockade,  or  allows  it  to 
be  broken,  her  naval  supremacy  is  at  an  end  for  ever.  It  is  as 
effective  as  a  blockade  can  be  made  against  vessels  navigated 
by  steam.  If  England  is  led  into  the  snare  that  has  been  laid 
for  her,  and  is  betrayed  into  the  declaration  that  our  blockade 
is  not  effective,  she  need  never  hope  to  establish  one  hereafter 
that  will  be. 

My  friend,  I  have  said  that  any  interference  with  our  right 
to  keep  the  rebel  ports  of  America  closed  to  foreign  commerce 
would  be  promptly  and  desperately  resented,  no  matter  from 
which  or  how  many  quarters  that  interference  came.  Such  is 


456        EETEOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

my  conviction.  It  does  not  become  me  to  say  what  would  be 
the  probable  result  of  a  conflict  with  us  on  such  an  issue.  It 
may  even  be  that  your  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  in  his 
recent  eloquent  speech  in  Scotland,  has  underrated  your  pow 
ers  of  conquest.  You  .undoubtedly  would  do  us  great  dam 
age;  you  might  give  a  quasi-independence  for  a  time  to  the 
cotton  States ;  you  might  even  get  possession  of  Portland,  for 
which  your  political  organs  have  not  had  the  grace  to  conceal 
their  covetousness ;  but  with  all  our  losses,  yours  would  cer 
tainly  be  much  greater.  With  all  your  experience  of  foreign 
wars  you  know  nothing  of  the  costliness  of  a  war  with  a  nation 
separated  like  ours  from  you  by  3000  miles  of  ocean,  with,  as 
many  more  miles  of  sea-coast,  and  occupying  an  area  of  terri 
tory  much  larger  than  all  Europe,  intersected  in  every  direc 
tion  by  railroads,  with  an  army  of  half  a  million  of  men  under 
arms,  a  fleet  of  war  vessels  not  to  be  despised,  and  with 
capacities  to  multiply  them  at  the  rate  of  three,  at  least,  to 
England's  two.  Such  a  war,  I  am  quite  sure,  and  such  is  the 
opinion  of  your  highest  commercial  authorities,  would  bank 
rupt  your  Government  in  three  months,  and  sink  it,  pending 
the  war,  if  not  for  ever,  by  the  force  of  circumstances,  from  a 
first  to  a  second  class  Power;  for  there  is  no  nation,  nor  any 
two  nations,  in  Europe  strong  enough  to  fight  America,  and 
retain  a  controlling  position  in  Europe.  Much  as  we  should 
suffer  in  such  a  contest,  it  would  be  regarded  by  our  people  as 
the  only  alternative,  and,  like  blind  old  Samson  in  the  temple, 
we  should  leave  the  consequences  to  Providence  and  the  Philis 
tines. 

I  will  bring  this  long  and,  I  fear,  tedious  letter  to  a  close  by 
quoting  a  remark  of  the  present  ruler  of  France,  in  which,  I 
think,  the  statesmen,  the  manufacturers,  and  the  taxpayers  of 
England  may  all  find  a  lesson  for  the  times.  He  says,  in  his 
"Idees  Napoliennes ' ' : 

"The  period  of  the  empire  has  been  a  war  to  the  death  be 
tween  England  and  France.  England  triumphed ;  but,  thanks 
to  the  creative  genius  of  Napoleon,  France,  though  van 
quished,  lost  less  materially  than  England.  The  finances  of 
France  are  still  the  most  prosperous  in  Europe.  England 
bends  under  the  weight  of  her  debt.  The  impulse  given  to 
industry  and  commerce  has  not  been  arrested  by  our  reverses. 
To-day  the  continent  of  Europe  supplies  itself  with  most  of 


THE  MONITEUR  AND  CHARLESTON  HARBOR     457 

the  products  which  were  formerly  furnished  by  England.  Now 
then,  we  ask,  who  are  the  great  statesmen,  those  who  have 
governed  countries  which  have  gained  in  spite  of  defeat,  or 
those  who  have  ruled  countries  which  have  lost  in  spite  of  vic 
tory  1" 

Could  England  hope  for  a  better  result  from  a  war  with 
America  1 

Yours  very  sincerely,  in  peace  and  in  war, 


BIGELOW  TO  THE  MONITEUR 

Translation 

PARIS,  January  24,  1862. 
To  the  Editor  of  the  Moniteur: 

Some  of  the  English  journals,  writing  apparently  in  the 
interest  of  slavery,  are  laboring  to  mislead  public  opinion  in 
Europe  by  asserting  that  the  port  of  Charleston  has  been 
closed  forever  by  means  of  stone  sunk  in  ships  at  its  mouth.1 
This  is  a  pernicious  error.  The  Government  of  the  United 
States  has  never  contemplated  any  permanent  obstruction  of 
that  port.  It  sank  some  ships  laden  with  stone  at  one  of  the 
entrances  to  the  harbor,  where  the  water,  according  to  the 
Coast  Survey,  averages  only  nine  feet  in  depth  at  low  tide; 
the  water  was  admitted  into  the  vessels  through  plug-holes 
from  below;  those  holes  can  be  closed  and  the  vessels  raised 
again  at  less  expense  and  in  less  time  than  it  took  to  collect, 
load  and  sink  them  there.  At  low  tide  the  hulls  of  the  smallest 
of  vessels  there  must  be  visible  above  the  surface,  and  no  pos 
sible  accumulation  of  sand  which  they  can  make  in  such 
shallow  water  can  prove  a  formidable  obstacle  to  their  eleva 
tion,  with  suitable  machinery,  unless  by  their  own  weight  they 
disappear  altogether,  which  is  not  improbable.  We  are  told 
by  the  Charleston  Mercury  of  a  recent  date  that  vessels  of 
1000  tons  laden  with  railroad  iron  have  been  sunk  there  and 
not  a  vestige  remained  in  three  months. 

lThe  bar  is  five  or  six  miles  from  Charleston. 


458        KETKOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Were  this  a  case  in  which  the  conscience  of  the  world  ought 
to  be  directed  by  the  example  of  previous  generations,  I 
should  have  little  difficulty  in  vindicating  the  course  of  our 
Government,  even  had  it  entertained  the  vindictive  purposes 
attributed  to  it.  I  should  have  asked  your  leave  to  refer  our 
censors  to  the  siege  of  Eochelle  by  Louis  XIII.  in  1628 ;  to  the 
sealing  up  of  the  Scheldt  in  1648,  which  gave  the  commerce  of 
Antwerp  a  blow  from  which  it  has  never  recovered;  to  the 
Treaty  of  Utrecht,  by  which  Queen  Anne  bound  Louis  XIV. 
to  destroy  the  harbor  of  Dunkirk,  which  ranked  fourth  in 
commercial  importance  among  the  harbors  of  France;  to  the 
threatened  stoning  up  of  the  fleet  of  Napoleon  I.  at  Boulogne 
in  1804 ;  to  the  sunken  ships  which  the  British  Admiral  left  in 
the  harbor  when  he  evacuated  Alexandria  in  1807,  and  to  the 
still  more  recent  and  familiar  example  of  Eussia  in  her  de 
fence  of  Sebastopol. 

Fortunately  the  Government  of  the  United  States  does  not 
stand  in  need  of  such  a  vindication,  and  I  am  happy  to  infer, 
from  the  emotion  exhibited  in  Europe  by  th.e  supposed  destruc 
tion  of  Charleston  harbor,  that  a  more  enlightened  public 
opinion  and  a  purer  national  morality  prevail  now  than  when 
any  of  the  precedents  I  have  cited  were  furnished. 

If  the  English  Government  is  as  anxious  as  her  press  seems 
now  to  be  to  protect  the  commerce  of  neutral  nations  from  the 
vicissitudes  of  war;  to  have  no  more  blockades,  to  have  all 
seas  and  harbors  recognized  as  the  common  property  of  all 
nations,  subject  to  the  necessarily  indefeasible  rights  of  sov 
ereignty,  and  to  have  the  peaceful  commerce  of  the  world 
placed  under  the  protection  of  the  navies  of  the  world,  there 
is  no  government  from  which  it  may  expect  a  more  cordial 
cooperation  than  from  the  Government  of  the  United  States. 
Upon  such  terms  I  am  sure  the  American  people  will  be  but 
too  happy  to  bear  the  reproach  from  history  of  having  estab 
lished  the  last  blockade  by  which  the  commerce  and  civilization 
of  the  world  will  have  to  suffer. 

Yours  very  respectfully, 

(Signed)         JOHN  BIGELOW, 
U.  S.  Consul. 


BRIGHT  ON  THE  UNION  PROGRAMME          459 

JOHN  HEIGHT  TO  BIGELOW 

Private 

EOCHDALE,  Jan.  22,  1862. 
My  dear  Mr.  Bigelow: 

I  am  surprised  at  the  contents  of  your  letter,  for  I  have 
heard  nothing  of  the  intentions  of  the  Tory  party  in  the  com 
ing  session.  This  morning,  however,  I  learn  from  a  letter 
from  London,  that  it  is  stated  that  Mr.  Lindsay,  M.  P.  for 
Sunderland,  will  bring  on  the  question  the  first  night  of  the 
session,  and  that  he  will  be  seconded  by  Mr.  Ayrton,  M.  P.  for 
the  Tower  Hamlets  (the  east  end  of  London). 

Neither  of  these  persons  has  influence  in  the  House,  but 
their  proposition,  if  they  make  one,  may  give  an  opportunity 
for.  the  enemy  on  both  sides  of  the  House  to  support  schemes 
which  you  and  I  must  condemn. 

Mr.  Lindsay  was  in  the  States  two  years  ago,  and  saw  many 
people  there  on  the  questions  connected  with  shipping  and 
with  your  navigation  laws,  and  doubtless  he  made  the  acquain 
tance  of  the  men  connected  with  your  late  government.  He 
has  spoken  unfavorably  of  the  prospects  of  a  restoration  of  the 
Union  at  a  meeting  during  the  parliamentary  recess,  and  is  I 
think  not  unlikely  to  do  foolishly  in  the  matter. 

If  the  Queen's  speech  is  friendly,  and  if  Palmerston  and 
Russell  are  not  for  any  action  in  favor  of  the  South,  I  do  not 
think  the  House  will  show  a  majority  against  them.  Recog 
nition  is  not  war  but  it  is  a  step  in  that  direction,  and  Mr. 
Seward's  remark  to  this  effect  in  one  of  his  dispatches  only 
makes  such  a  step  the  more  dangerous.  I  shall,  of  course,  do 
all  I  can  to  urge  the  government  to  a  prudent  and  friendly 
course.  Lord  Russell  has  written  about  Charleston  harbor,  to 
which  I  hope  and  believe  Mr.  Seward  will  be  able  to  give  a 
reply  that  will  close  that  case.  I  need  hardly  tell  you  that  I 
have  no  influence  with  the  Government  so  far  as  Palmerston 
and  the  Foreign  office  are  concerned— all  I  can  do  is  to  urge 
certain  members  of  it  to  avoid  the  bottomless  pit  into  which 
they  may  be  tempted  to  be  drawn. 

I  observe  what  you  say  about  the  chances  of  some  broad 
proposition  being  made  by  your  government.  I  will  tell  you 


460        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

what  I  hear  from  a  Ifiigh  source  from  Washington.  It  is  ex 
pected  there  that  shortly,  even  during  the  month  of  February, 
the  government  will  occupy  New  Orleans,  and  probably  one  or 
more  of  the  other  cotton  ports,  in  which  case  I  presume  the 
blockade  will  be  at  once  raised  in  respect  of  the  ports  so  oc 
cupied,  and  thus  all  pretense  for  interference  from  Europe 
will  be  at  an  end.  If  this  can  be  done,  I  think  you  will  be  safe 
from  danger  from  this  side. 

Another  thing  I  hear  is  this— there  will  be  a  project  for 
making  Missouri,  Kentucky,  Maryland  and  Delaware  into  free 
states,  by  a  guaranteed  compensation  for  the  400,000  slaves 
now  held  in  those  states.  If  they  consent  to  this,  and  your 
congress  resolves  to  do  it,  then  these  states  give  you  no  fur 
ther  trouble  but  become  thoroughly  for  the  Union,  and  you 
will  have  no  difficulty  in  determining  your  course  with  respect 
to  the  slavery  question  in  the  insurgent  states.  Wherever  your 
forces  penetrate,  there  freedom  can  be  offered  to  the  negro. 

This  is  the  programme,  as  I  learn  from  a  quarter  which  I 
think  cannot,  and  I  am  sure  would  not  mislead  me.  Supposing 
the  worst  of  France  and  England,— I  hope  your  government 
may  be  in  advance  of  them— if  you  can  occupy  New  Orleans, 
and  offer  the  compensation  to  the  border  states,  I  think  it  will 
be  impossible  for  any  government  here  or  in  France  to  inter 
fere,  for  such  interference  will  not  have  even  the  pretense  of 
the  injuriousness  of  the  blockade,  and  would  be  infamous  to 
the  eye  of  the  world,  as  tending  to  the  restoration  and  per 
petuation  of  slavery. 

Mr.  Cobden,  as  you  probably  know,  wrote  to  General  Scott, 
before  the  General  left  Paris,  and  also  to  at  least  one  of  your 
eminent  men  in  Washington,  advising  that  the  blockade  should 
be  raised,  if  possible.  I  presume  the  preparations  at  home 
to  which  you  refer,  are  such  as  I  have  named,  and  consist 
mainly  of  the  occupation  of  the  cotton  ports.  You  may  rest 
assured  that  any  broad  proposition  from  your  government 
would  receive  great  support  here,  and  it  would  do  much  to 
separate  the  interests  of  England  and  France,  if  England 
refused  to  consent  to  it,  (because  France  has  always  been 
ready  to  accept  modifications  of  the  barbarities  of  naval  war 
fare,)  and  therefore  would  weaken  their  action  against  you. 
Much  depends  on  the  rapidity  with  which  your  government 
can  act. 

The  only  chance  of  evil  here  is  in  the  belief  which  the  Times 


MOTLEY'S  IMPRESSIONS  IN  VIENNA  461 

and  other  papers  have  created  that  the  war  is  hopeless  and 
endless,  and  a  restoration  of  the  Union  impossible ;  if  you  can 
show  strength  and  progress  within  the  next  month,  I  think  this 
belief  will  be  shaken,  and  any  disposition  to  interfere  with  you 
will  be  to  a  large  extent  disposed  of. 

If  I  hear  anything  worth  telling  you,  I  will  write  again  in  a 
few  days. 

Ever  yours  sincerely 


The  following  letter  was  written  after  reading  my  letter 
in  the  London  Morning  Post,  then  the  recognized  organ  of 
Lord  Palmerston.  Like  many  others,  Mr.  Motley's  views 
of  the  value  of  the  Union  had  been  greatly  invigorated  by  the 
course  of  events  during  the  two  years  preceding.  In  1860  I 
met  him  casually  in  Paris,  when  he  pronounced  himself 
strongly  in  favor  of  ' i  letting  the  wayward  sisters  go, ' '  to  use 
General  Scott's  expression— in  fact,  to  let  the  slave  States 
retire  from  the  Union  and  set  up  for  themselves  as  our  best 
policy  and  a  good  riddance.  It  was  Mr.  Motley's  great  mis 
fortune  to  have  passed  most  of  his  adult  life  in  Europe,  and, 
as  an  inevitable  consequence,  he  received  his  impressions  of 
American  politics  meantime  mainly  from  the  London  Times, 
always  our  least  charitable  foreign  critic. 


MOTLEY,  AMERICAN  MINISTER  PLENIPOTENTIARY  TO  AUSTRIA, 

TO  BIGELOW 

Private  &  Confidential 

VIENNA,  Jan.  24,  1862. 
My  dear  Sir: 

I  received  yesterday  your  interesting  letter  too  late  to  reply 
by  that  day's  post.  I  sent,  however,  a  number  of  the  previous 
day's  journal  of  Vienna,  Die  Presse,  which  contained  an 
article  on  our  affairs,  as  much  to  my  mind  as  I  trust  it  will  be 
to  yours.  This  newspaper  has  much  the  largest  circulation 
of  any  daily  here— 30,000— is  very  well  conducted,  very  lib 
eral,  and  always  remarkably  well  informed,  and  well  disposed 


462        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

on  American  matters.  Should  you  like  the  tone  of  this  article, 
and  think  it  worth  having  translated  into  French  papers,  I 
should  be  glad  to  send,  hereafter,  other  numbers  that  may 
seem  useful.  Let  me  know  whether  you  can  and  would  do  this. 
I  don't  know  whether  you  read  German.  If  not,  I  would  ob 
serve  that  there  are  one  or  two  points  that  require  correction 
in  the  article  sent.  The  intention  of  stone-blockading  New 
Orleans  is  spoken  of — which  of  course  is  nonsense — and  there 
are  one  or  two  allusions  to  France  which  might  be  suppressed. 

In  regard  to  the  member  of  Parliament  and  his  letter  he 
may  be  well  informed  and,  doubtless,  is,  as  to  party  intrigues 
in  England.  I  suspect  that  he  is  quite  wrong  as  to  the  inten 
tions  of  the  French  Government— although  you  ought  to  be 
better  informed  than  I.  I  had  a  long  talk  yesterday— two 
hours  steady— with  the  Due  de  Gramont  (French  Ambassador 
here).  That  they  have  remonstrated  against  the  stone  sinking 
is  true.  That  they  have  instructed  M.  Mercier  that  they  will 
no  longer  recognize  the  blockade  of  the  Southern  ports  is  not 
true—that  the  French  and  English  governments  have  combined 
forcibly  to  intervene  in  our  affairs,  is  all  fudge.  That  the 
Emperor  in  his  speech  will  "denounce  the  mode  of  warfare 
adopted  by  the  North  as  barbarous "  etc.  etc.  the  Due  de  G. 
does  not  believe.  Of  this  one  point  however  we  shall  all  be 
able  to  judge  very  soon. 

It  is  very  certain  that  France  wishes  to  put  an  end  to  the 
war.  But  I  feel  certain  that  she  will  try  remonstrances,  offers 
of  mediation  and  negotiation,  before  resorting  to  violence.  If 
we  could  have  been  blown  sky  high  by  vulgar,  brutal  news 
papers  in  France  and  England,  or  by  the  speeches  of  ignorant, 
passionate,  and  venal  members  of  Parliament— there  would 
have  been  nothing  left  of  us  by  this  time— but  I  doubt  if  either 
government  is  yet  prepared  to  make  war  upon  us  in  cold  blood. 
I  have  explained  very  fully  to  the  Ambassador  here  (who  is 
an  old  acquaintance  of  mine,  and  a  most  amiable,  excellent 
person)  that  it  would  be  impossible  for  us  to  avoid  a  war  with 
France  or  England,  or  both,  if  they  declared  our  blockade  not 
binding,  and  that  we  should  accept  it,  even  tho'  ruin  and 
desolation  stared  us  in  the  face,  because  we  should  see  in  such 
a  policy  the  determination  to  drive  us  into  a  war,  however  we 
might  wish  to  avoid  it.  He  has  promised  to  write  to  the 
Emperor  at  once,  and  communicate  these  views.  He  is  an  old 


MOTLEY'S  IMPRESSIONS  IN  VIENNA  463 

and  very  intimate  friend  of  his  Majesty,  and  expresses  confi 
dence  that  he  is  not  actuated  by  hostility  to  us.  I  have  also 
commented  on  the  insane  trash  that  is  talked  about  destroying 
forever  the  port  of  Charleston,  by  blockading  temporarily  one 
of  several  channels,  and  of  characterizing  as  a  paper  blockade 
that  of  the  Southern  ports,  watched,  and  to  last  accts.  by  129 
ships,  as  calumny  and  falsehood  of  our  great  enemies  in 
Europe.  Nothing  however  will  save  us  more  than  six  months 
against  foreign  interference,  except  unquestionable  success, 
or  an  unequivocal  policy  as  to  slavery.  England  can't  fight 
against  an  emancipating  government.  She  now  affects  to  con 
sider  the  U.  S.  A.  as  much  for  slavery  as  the  Confederates. 

In  regard  to  your  suggestion  about  my  going  to  England, 
between  ourselves,  I  doubt  if  Adams  would  like  it,  and  I  don't 
like  to  appear  to  intrude  on  his  province.  He  is  very  able  and 
might  think  me  meddlesome.  As  to  the  question  itself  in  Eng 
land,  it  is  all  a  vile  intrigue  between  the  ins  and  outs— which 
shall  make  the  most  capital  out  of  the  hatred  of  democracy. 
What  would  have  been  said  of  us  if  we  had  done  so  dirty  a 
thing  as  to  suppress  and  lie  about  Seward's  dispatch  of  30 
November  1  Nothing  could  be  more  disgraceful.  Pray  let  me 
hear  from  you  soon. 

Best  regards  to  Mrs.  Bigelow. 

Ever  sincerely  yours 

P.S.  You  observe  that  this  note  is  very  confidential  as  I 
quote  private  conversations— which  must  be  most  securely 
kept  from  the  public. 


SEWARD   TO  BIGELOW 

Confidential 

DEPARTMENT  OF  STATE, 

WASHINGTON,  Feby.  3, 1862. 
Sir: 

I  must  be  excused  for  disbelieving  that  the  French  Govern 
ment  is  acting  so  perfidiously  as  it  certainly  would  be  if  the 


464       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

information  given  you  by  your  friend  of  the  Press  in  Paris  is 
correct.  I  know,  moreover,  that  the  writer  of  the  letter  from 
London,  which  you  enclosed  to  me,  is  misled  very  widely  in 
regard  to  certain  facts  on  which  his  hateful  schemes  are  based. 

Of  course,  however,  I  am  grateful  to  you  for  giving  me  the 
information,  and  whatever  prudence  and  wisdom  can  do  here 
will  be  done  to  prevent  the  design  it  purports  to  reveal.1 

Prospects  here  are  cheerful  and  encouraging.  We  are,  I 
think,  now  masters  of  the  position,  and  I  trust  that  it  will  soon 
be  understood  in  Europe. 

I  am,  Sir, 

Your  obedient  servant 


SEWAED   TO  BIGELOW 

DEPARTMENT  OF  STATE, 

WASHINGTON,  Feby.  14,  1862. 
Sir: 

I  thank  you  for  your  diligence  and  attention  in  sending  to 
me  the  paper  drawn  by  M.  Garnier-Pages,2  which  is  indeed 
very  able  and  very  interesting. 

Accept  my  thanks  also  for  your  own  paper  concerning  the 
stone  blockade. 

Judging  from  a  manifest  difference  in  the  tone  of  the 
European  Press,  and  that  of  the  representatives  of  European 
States  here,  on  exciting  topics,  I  am  constrained  to  believe 
that  much  of  what  is  said  in  London  and  Paris  is  designed  to 
quiet  interested  or  sinister  complaints  made  there,  without 
expecting  to  produce  effects  here.  But  this  is  confidential. 

Do  not  fail  to  express  my  warmest  thanks  to  M.  Garnier- 
Pages  for  his  generous  and  loyal  paper. 

I  am,  Sir,  &c. 

1  This  was,  I  think,  in  response  to  a  rumor  which  had  reached  me  of  a 
scheme  of  the  Confederate  refugees  in  Canada  to  take  advantage  of  the 
unpopularity  of  the  conscription  laws  of  New  York  to  burn  the  city  of 
New  York. 

8  One  of  our  warmest  friends  in  the  Corps  Legislatif ,  who  gave  his  impres 
sion  to  Mr.  Seward  of  the  best  way  to  counteract  in  Europe  the  policies 
of  the  Imperial  Government  in  relation  to  the  United  States. 


A  CONFEDERACY-LOUISIANA  CESSION       465 


BIGELOW  TO  SEWAKD 

CONSULATE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES, 

PAKIS,  Feb.  17,  1862. 
HON.  WILLIAM  H.  SEWAKD, 

Sir: 

I  have  reason  to  believe  that  Slidell  has  had  an  audience 
with  the  Emperor.  Mr.  Brown,  the  correspondent  of  the 
London  Post,  showed  me  a  note  yesterday  from  the  office  of 
the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  containing  a  paragraph 
to  this  effect,  "If  Mr.  Slidell  has  been  presented  to  the 
Emperor,  it  was  a  private  act  and  he  has  not  been  received  in 
an  official  or  public  character. "  Mr.  Brown  was  satisfied 
from  the  note  and  from  a  conversation,  which  he  sought  after 
wards,  that  the  Emperor  did  receive  Slidell,  that  Slidell  said 
the  North  would  not  conquer  the  South,  and  that  the  South 
was  ready  to  offer  Europe  unconditional  free  trade. 

The  rest  of  the  conversation,  so  far  as  I  heard  it,  was  the 
commonplace  rhodomontade  about  the  wealth,  resources,  and 
repressed  prosperity  of  the  South,  only  waiting  independence 
to  develop  itself.  I  hope  you  may  have  received  a  fuller 
account  of  this  interview  from  a  more  direct  source. 

Yours  very  Eespectfully 


In  the  following  communication  will  be  found  some  facts 
which  should  have  been  an  objection  to  a  Bonaparte,  at  least, 
countenancing  a  separation  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  from 
the  rest  of  the  Union. 

It  was  sent  to  me  with  a  letter  from  a  gentleman,  personally 
unknown  to  me,  signed,  "Yours  in  our  country's  trials,  ALON- 
SON  PENFIELD,"  and  dated  "Washington,  February  21,  1862, " 
with  the  request :  "  to  give  it  to  such  a  paper  as  a  medium  that 
you  may  think  the  best  to  reach  the  ears  of  the  Government, 
or  the  widest  dissemination  among  the  people." 

As  the  laws  are  silent  between  embattled  forces,  I  did  not 


466        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

see  any  advantage  in  offering  the  paper  to  the  French  press, 
even  if  sure  of  its  acceptance,  which  I  was  not ;  but  the  point 
seemed  to  be  well  taken  by  Mr.  Penfield. 


FRANCE  AND  THE  EEBEL  STATES 

France  precluded  recognizing  a  Southern  Confederacy  ~by  .the  Treaty 
ceding  Louisiana.  The  State  of  Louisiana  reverts  to  a  Territorial 
Condition. 

In  the  1st  Article  of  the  treaty  of  1803,  by  which  Louisiana  was 
ceded  to  the  U.  States,  are  these  words,  "The  First  Consul  of  the 
French  republic,  desirous  to  give  to  the  U.  States  a  strong  proof  of 
his  friendship,  doth  hereby  cede  to  the  U.  States  in  the  name  of  the 
French  republic  forever  and  in  full  sovereignty  the  said  territory, 
with  all  its  rights  and  appurtenances";  and  in  Art.  3d,  "The  inhabi 
tants  of  the  ceded  territory  shall  be  incorporated  in  the  Union  of  the 
U.  States  and  admitted,  as  soon  as  possible  according  to  the  principles 
of  the  Federal  Constitution,  to  the  enjoyment  of  all  the  rights,  ad 
vantages  and  immunities  of  citizens  of  the  U.  States. ' ' 

Marboise,  his  secretary  or  minister  of  the  public  Treasury,  ap 
pointed  by  Bonaparte  to  negotiate  with  our  ministers  for  the  sale  of 
Louisiana,  tells  us  that  Napoleon  with  his  own  hand  drew  up  this  3d 
Article.  Should  France  recognize  the  so-called  Confederacy  it  will  be 
in  contravention  of  the  treaty,  for  the  States  of  Louisiana  and  Ar 
kansas  are  part  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  the  former  covering  both 
banks  of  the  Mississippi  River.  Both  "inhabitants"  and  "territory" 
are  conjoined,  and  if  we  look  into  the  history  of  the  negotiation  as  it 
progressed  we  find  that  it  was  the  territory  as  a  basis  for  after  popu 
lation  and  power  more  than  the  then  small  number  of  the  people  for 
whom  stipulation  and  provision  were  made  by  the  First  Consul.  Nor 
was  it  the  money  consideration— the  $15,000,000  was  a  mere  trifle  in 
the  estimation  of  Napoleon  for  the  property.  What,  then,  was  the 
great  purpose  in  his  mind?  The  U.  States  had  asked  only  for  the 
island  of  Orleans.  Marboise  was  in  daily  communication  with  Napo 
leon  as  to  the  progress  of  the  negotiation.  We  recite  a  few  sentences 
from  the  First  Consul  which  Marboise  gives  us.  "The  principles  of 
a  maritime  supremacy  are  subversive  of  one  of  the  noblest  rights  that 
nature,  science  and  genius  have  secured  to  man,  I  mean  the  right  of 
traversing  every  sea  with  as  much  liberty  as  the  bird  flies  through  the 
air;  of  making  use  of  the  waves,  winds,  climates  and  productions  of 


A  CONFEDERACY  — LOUISIANA  CESSION       467 

the  globe;  of  bringing  near  to  one  another,  by  a  bold  navigation, 
nations  that  have  been  separated  since  the  creation;  of  carrying 
civilization  into  regions  that  are  a  prey  to  ignorance  and  barbarism. 
This  is  what  England  would  usurp  over  all  other  nations.  To  eman 
cipate  nations  from  the  commercial  tyranny  of  England  it  is  necessary 
to  balance  her  influence  by  a  maritime  power  that  may  one  day  become 
her  rival ;  that  power  is  the  U.  States.  The  English  aspire  to  dispose 
of  all  the  riches  of  the  world.  I  shall  be  useful  to  the  whole  universe 
if  I  can  prevent  their  ruling  America  as  they  rule  Asia."  Again, 
"If  I  should  regulate  my  terms  according  to  the  value  of  these  vast 
regions  to  the  U.  States  the  indemnity  would  have  no  limits. ' '  After 
the  treaty  was  signed  Napoleon  said,  "This  accession  of  territory 
strengthens  forever  the  power  of  the  U.  States,  and  I  have  just  given 
to  England  a  maritime  rival  that  will  sooner  or  later  humble  her 
pride."  Here  we  have  the  developed  idea— a  balance  power  on  the 
Western  continent.  The  vast  territory  ceded  was  to  be  a  composite 
element  of  that  power. 

Sovereignty  and  eminent  domain  passed  to  the  U.  States,  but  it 
was  not  the  intention  or  spirit  of  the  treaty  that  those  powers  should 
ever  pass  from  the  U.  States  to  any  other  government  or  power  dimin 
ishing  a  particle  of  the  balance  power,  least  of  all  that  France  should 
ever  intervene  to  the  disruption  of  the  great  balance  wheel.  To 
bring  a  wilderness  of  a  million  of  square  miles,  in  States,  into  the 
"Union"  was  not  the  work  of  a  day;  it  required  time.  The  west 
bank  of  the  Mississippi  from  its  mouth  to  its  source  has  been  planted 
with  flourishing  members,  of  large  area,  and  another  in  the  central 
rear,  six  in  all.  These  States,  however,  excluding  from  the  State  of 
Minnesota  the  remnant  of  the  old  Northwest  Territory,  give  but  394,000 
square  miles  erected  into  States,  leaving  yet  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase 
470,000  square  miles.  The  Constitution  of  the  State  of  Louisiana 
declares,  "We  the  representatives  of  the  people  of  all  that  part  of  the 
territory  or  country  ceded  under  the  name  of  Louisiana  by  the  treaty 
made  at  Paris  on  the  30th  of  April,  1803,  between  the  U.  States  and 
France  contained  in  the  following  limits,"  &c.  The  people  of  the 
territory  of  Arkansas  on  forming  a  Constitution  assert  their  "right 
of  admission  into  the  Union  as  one  of  the  U.  States  of  America,  consis 
tent  with  the  Federal  Constitution,  and  by  virtue  of  the  treaty  of 
cession,  by  France  to  the  U.  States,  of  the  Province  of  Louisiana." 
We  see  with  what  tenacity  these  two  now  rebel  States  held  to  the  pro 
visions  of  the  above  treaty,  for  entering  the  Union.  Moreover  the 
enabling  Act  of  Congress  for  the  people  of  Orleans  Territory  to  form 
a  Constitution  imposed  prohibitions  against  obstruction  of  the  Mis 
sissippi  River,  and  in  the  act  of  admission  to  the  Union,  again  recited 
from  the  ordinance  of  1787,  "Provided  it  shall  be  taken  as  a  condi 
tion  upon  which  the  said  State  is  incorporated  into  the  Union  that 


468        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

the  river  Mississippi  and  the  navigable  rivers  and  waters  running 
into  the  same  or  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  shall  be  forever  free  as  well  to 
the  inhabitants  of  the  said  State  as  to  the  inhabitants  of  other  States 
and  the  inhabitants  of  the  territories  of  the  U.  States/'  Here  we 
remark  that  the  signal  manner  in  which  she  has  violated  and  broken 
these  conditions  legislates  her  out  of  the  Union  into  her  territorial 
condition,  which  would  be  consummated  by  a  declarative  act  of 
Congress.  Some  others  of  the  rebellious  States  are  in  the  same 
category. 

When  Louisiana  was  ceded  to  the  U.  States  it  had  been  under  the 
fostering  care,  alternately,  of  France  and  Spain  near  a  century,  and 
at  its  cession  in  1803  the  amount  of  exports  from  N.  Orleans  accord 
ing  to  President  Jefferson  was  less  than  $2,000,000  the  previous  year. 
In  a  little  over  half  a  century  from  its  first  possession  by  the  U.  States, 
saying  nothing  of  the  vast  traffic  carried  on  between  upper  river 
towns  and  the  exports  from  the  Mississippi  valley  through  the  Lakes, 
the  receipts  of  produce  alone  at  N.  Orleans  for  1860  according  to  the 
annual  trade  tables  were,  in  value,  but  a  little  short  of  $200,000,000. 
The  immense  trade  of  the  grandest  river  of  the  globe,  a  trade  of  greater 
magnitude  than  that  of  any  other  river,  has  been  suddenly  devastated 
with  a  ruin  almost  as  complete  as  that  of  Apocalyptic  Babylon.  Such 
a  blow  cannot  fall  without  producing  a  shock  to  the  trade  of  mari 
time  nations  if  not  as  terrific,  scarcely  less  wide-spread  than  was  the 
financial  tornado  of  1857,  that  swept  from  the  Mississippi  to  the  Bos- 
phorus. 

The  U.  States  have  been  sedulously  carrying  out  in  good  faith  the 
uttermost  demands  of  the  treaty;  nor  can  they,  if  they  would,  yield 
the  sovereignty  of  any  part  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  to  Confederate 
States  or  devise  it  to  any  other  government  and  keep  good  faith  with 
France.  The  States  of  Louisiana  and  Arkansas  have  broken  the  most 
sacred  stipulations  with  the  U.  States,  and  their  own  broken  State 
Constitutions  are  the  badges  of  their  treachery  and  falsehood. 

It  was  during  the  Crimean  war  that  the  harvest  of  France  failed 
in  1855  and  Louis  Napoleon  sent  orders  to  a  French  house,  in  St.  Louis 
to  purchase  wheat.  The  large  shipments  of  breadstuffs  from  the  Lakes 
to  England  and  France  and  to  supply  the  allied  armies  in  the  Black 
Sea  were  interrupted  by  the  close  of  navigation ;  but  in  December  the 
large  "Orleans"  boats  of  2000  tons  were  carrying  the  wheat  bought  on 
the  above  order  down  the  river  by  a  winter  voyage.  This  great  avenue, 
the  Mississippi,  to  the  grain  fields  of  the  northwest  is  now  closed  by  the 
rebels.  Will  France  side  with  the  rebel  States  when  those  same  grain 
fields  have  sent  the  past  season  large  supplies  by  the  Lakes  to  the  whole 
Atlantic  continental  coast  from  the  Mediterranean  to  the  Elbe  ? 

English  historians  and  writers  tell  us  that  it  was  the  invention  of 
the  steam-engine  arid  the  spinning-jenny,  and  others  yet  that  it  was  the 
cotton  manufacture  that  enabled  England  to  carry  on  her  wars  directly 


MONTAUBAN-EENAN  469 

and  by  subsidies  to  the  overthrow  of  Napoleon.  Some  American  writers 
say  that  behind  these  the  true  cause  was  Cotton!  Now  while  it  is 
averred  by  some  that  the  object  of  a  Southern  Confederacy  is  to  es 
tablish  greater  safeguards  to  slavery,  and  by  others,  to  possess  a 
monopoly  of  cotton,  we  must  also  add  that  the  possession  of  the  key 
of  the  Mississippi  is  the  vital  power.  Without  this  the  bubble  would  be 
gone.  This  is  the  pivot  point.  It  was  so  in  the  airy  castles  of  Aaron 
Burr ;  of  Spanish  and  French  intentions  to  found,  each  in  succession, 
a  vast  empire  centring  upon  the  same  point.  This  was  the  scheme 
of  John  Law  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  when  he  marshalled 
to  his  aid  the  entire  forces  of  the  banking  system  of  France,  and 
merged  all  the  Foreign  Companies  of  trade,  the  revenues  of  the 
kingdom,  foreign  and  internal,  to  increase  the  magnificence,  the 
splendor  and  glory  of  the  one  Company,  "the  Company  of  the  Indies — 
the  Mississippi  Company. ' '  The  inflation  which  pervaded  all  France 
in  view  of  prospective  if  not  present  wealth  made  the  financial  recoil 
but  the  more  terrible.  What  is  that  principle  of  attraction  that  ever 
and  anon  holds  men  spellbound  as  they  look  upon*  the  dazzling  glitter 
of  that  golden  key  of  the  Mississippi  river  ?  Will  France,  now  infring 
ing  the  treaty,  thwart  the  intentions  and  wishes  of  France  under  the 
First  Consul? 

A.  P. 
WASHINGTON,  February  21,  1862. 


BIGELOW  TO  SEWAED 

PARIS,  March  7, 1862. 
HON.  WILLIAM  H.  SEWABD, 
Sir: 

The  pregnant  and  very  able  debate  in  the  Senate  on  the 
address  of  the  Emperor  has  been  brought  to  a  close  by  the 
almost  unanimous  adoption  of  the  Government  programme  as 
was  anticipated.  But  one  layman  voted  against  it.  The  disad 
vantages  of  a  union  of  the  temporal  and  spiritual  powers 
under  the  same  crown,  I  venture  to  say,  were  never  presented 
under  circumstances  better  calculated  to  secure  for  them  the 
appreciation  of  the  Catholic  world.  It  was  sufficiently  clear 
from  the  course  of  the  discussion,  that  the  Government  was 
disposed  to  neglect  no  efforts  to  create  a  public  sentiment 
which  would  sustain  it  in  departing  from  the  statu  quo,  which 
is  exhausting  Italy,  and  keeping  all  Europe  in  a  state  of  fever- 


470        BETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

ishness,  menacing  incalculable  distress  and  mischief  at  no 
distant  day. 

The  proposal  to  add  Montauban1  to  the  ranks  of  the  no 
bility,  which  led  to  a  somewhat  serious  collision  between  the 
Emperor  and  the  Corps  Legislatif,  has  been  settled  by  Im 
perial  concessions.  I  understand  that  the  Emperor  yielded 
through  no  good  feeling  towards  the  Corps  Legislatif  nor  from 
any  indisposition  on  his  part  to  try  conclusions  with  them,  but 
in  consequence  of  the  reports  which  came  to  him  from  the 
department  of  war.  The  officers  were  almost  unanimously 
against  the  proposal,  so  unpopular  is  Montauban  among  them. 
The  story  about  the  pearl  necklaces  is  sheer  stuff.  There  was 
but  one  necklace  in  question  and  that  was  pronounced  by  the 
highest  authority  on  such  questions  to  be  worth  not  exceeding 
50,000  francs  as  jewelry.  The  demonstration,  of  the  Army 
however  is  a  very  significant  symptom  and  has  encouraged  all 
the  elements  of  disaffection  here  immensely. 

I  send  by  this  mail  a  copy  of  M.  Renan's  discours  at  the 
College  of  France,  which  led  to  the  suppression  of  the  course. 
To  the  action  of  the  government  on  this  subject  is  attributed, 
to  a  large  extent,  the  unsettled  feeling,  to  which  I  have  already 
referred  and  which  has  become  so  serious  as  to  lead  to  numer 
ous  arrests  and  some  apprehension  of  public  disturbance.  I 
have  no  idea  that  there  is  any  real  misunderstanding  between 
M.  Eenan  and  the  Imperial  government.  The  Emperor  wanted 
to  have  said  just  what  the  Professor  did  say,  without  being 
made  responsible  at  Eome  for  the  saying  of  it.  M.  Eenan  has 
long  been  under  the  patronage  of  the  Emperor ;  he  visited  the 
East  some  years  ago  specially  charged  by  him  to  report  upon 

1  Montauban  had  served  in  Africa  and  became  a  general  of  division  in 
1855.  In  1860  he,  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the  expeditionary  corps  sent 
to  revenge  the  violation  of  the  Treaty  of  Tientsin.  He  put  the  Chinese 
army  to  flight,  and  with  his  victorious  troops  entered  Peking  on  the  12th 
of  -October  and  compelled  the  Chinese  Government  to  submit  to  a  peace 
on  onerous  terms.  His  marvellous  success  was  unhappily  soiled  by  the  scan 
dalous  pillage  of  the  Summer  Palace.  The  Emperor  immediately  recom 
pensed  him  by  making  him  a  Senator,  and  on  his  return  conferred  on  him  the 
title  of  Count  of  Palikao.  The  Emperor  tried  to  make  the  Corps  Legis 
latif  vote  him  an  endowment.  The  proposition,  however,,  was  received 
with  such  coolness  that  he  withdrew  it.  The  Emperor  found  the  means, 
nevertheless,  of  testifying  his  gratitude  at  the  expense  of  the  State.  It  was 
discovered  at  the  fall  of  the  Second  Empire  that  the  sum  of  589,500  francs 
had  been  taken  out  of  the  war  indemnity  imposed  upon  China,  and  given  to 
the  new  Count  of  Palikao,  by  order  of  the  Emperor. 


RENAN-COBDEN  471 

the  topography  of  those  parts  of  Asia  illustrated  by  Caesar's 
arms— the  Emperor  is  occupied  upon  a  life  of  the  conqueror  of 
Gaul— and  it  was  at  the  hands  of  the  Emperor  only  the  other 
day  that  he  received  this  professorship.  Besides  this,  the 
character  of  his  address  was  well  known  beforehand  and  he 
himself  anticipated  what  occurred.  About,  you  may  remem 
ber,  was  sent  to  Borne  at  the  Emperor's  expense  to  write  a 
book,  which  was  published  and  printed  at  the  Emperor's  ex 
pense  and  suppressed  by  the  Emperor's  police  in  three  or  four 
days  after  it  was  announced,  but  not  until  enough  copies  were 
issued  to  enable  all  Frenchmen,  who  could  read,  to  read  it 
under  the  stimulus  given  to  public  curiosity  by  government 
interference.  I  fancy  that  the  suspension  of  M.  Eenan's  course 
resulted  from  a  desire  to  make  a  conspicuous  exhibition  of  re 
spect  for  the  spiritual  authority  of  the  Church,  that  the  blows 
daily  dealt  by  him  against  its  temporal  power  might  fall  with 
the  more  weight.1 

1  While  Mr.  Cobden  was  negotiating  the  treaty  of  commerce  with  France 
in  1860,  he  had  his  lodgings  with  a  lady  who  was  then  the  widow  of  one  of 
his  valued  Lancashire  friends.  Her  house  was  frequented  by  the  working 
class  of  literary  and  scientific  people.  In  calling  there  one  evening  upon 
Mr.  Cobden,  I  was  presented  to  a  comparatively  young  man  in  a  rather 
clerical  costume  and  tonsured  head,  whom  I  took  for  a  priest.  I  remember 
that  the  reason  assigned  for  presenting  me  was  that  he  had  married  the 
niece  of  Ary  Scheffer,  the  artist,  though  he  had  already  written  and  pub 
lished  "L'Histoire  Generale  des  Langues  Semitiques,"  and  had  been  a  con 
tributor  to  the  Revue  des  Deux-Mondes  in  articles  entitled  "Etudes  d'His- 
toire  Religieuse"  and  "Essais  de  Morale  et  de  Critique."  This  young  man 
was  Ernest  Renan. 

His  connection  by  marriage  with  Ary  Scheffer,  however,  was  in  that 
circle  his  chief  claim  to  social  distinction.  He  had  been  educated  for  a 
priest,  but,  largely  through  the  influence  of  his  friend  Berthelot  and  the 
careful  study  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy,  he  abandoned  the  Church  and 
substituted  human  science  for  Christianity  as  his  religion.  During  the 
years  1860  and  1861  he  made  the  expedition  in  the  East  under  the  aus'pices 
of  the  Emperor,  and  while  in  Galilee  conceived  the  plan  of  the  series  of 
publications  entitled  "Les  Origines  du  Christianisme,"  embracing,  first,  "La 
Vie  de  Jesus,"  published  in  1863;  "Les  Apotres,"  in  1866;  "St.  Paul,"  in  1867; 
"L'Antechrist"  and  "Marc-Aurele,"  and  the  other  works  upon  which  his  fame 
as  a  writer  and  his  weakness  as  a  thinker  rest  to-day.  I  say  weakness  as  a 
thinker,  because  after  the  Franco-Prussian  War  he  practically  went  back 
upon  all  the  opinions  which  he  had  at  different  times  previously  professed. 

On  his  return  from  his  trip  to  the  East  he  was  named  professor  of  the 
Hebrew,  Chaldaic  and  Syriac  languages  of  the  College  de  France,  but  in 
his  first  lecture  he  had  the  hardihood  to  speak  of  Jesus  as  un  homme  in 
comparable.  However  it  may  be  now,  Paris  was  not  then  prepared  to  have 
the  divinity  of  Christ  denied  in  an  institution  supported  at  public  expense. 
The  manifestations  of  opposition,  both  from  the  clerical  and  anti-clerical 


472        BETEOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

You  will  find  in  the  C onstitutionnel  a  copy  of  an  amend 
ment  relating  to  American  affairs,  which  will  be  moved  by  the 
opposition.  It  will  not  pass,  but  a  month  ago  it  would  not  have 
been  offered. 

The  French  Government  expects  and  I  think  would  not  be 
very  unwilling  to  see  us  impose  an  export  duty  of  two  or  three 
cents  upon  cotton.  It  would  be  the  most  refined  way  of  making 
John  Bull  pay  for  the  music  to  which  he  has  been  dancing  for 
the  last  year,  and  anything  that  plagues  him  is  popular  in 
France.  Such  a  step  would  compel  England  to  surrender  her 
East-Indian  market  for  cotton  goods  to  New  England  or  to 
propose  protective  duties.  It  would  be  interesting  and  in 
structive  to  see  whether  her  government  could  turn  as  sharp 
a  corner  against  free  trade  as  it  did  against  the  right  of  search 
a  few  months  ago. 

There  is  a  general  anticipation  here  now  of  a  counter-revolu 
tion  in  the  Cotton  States  and  the  surrender  of  Johnstone's 
command  is  pretty  conclusive  evidence  of  it.  The  Secessionists 
here  say,  that  Floyd  and  Pillow  ought  to  be  hung  for  running 
away  and  Johnstone  for  surrendering.  There  are  many  South 
ern  people  here,  however,  who  have  passed  for  Secessionists, 
who  have  not  been  in  as  good  spirits  this  winter  as  since  the 
recent  news  from  Tennessee  and  North  Carolina. 

If  you  have  any  favors  to  ask  of  France,  now  is  the  time  to 
present  them  on  the  condition  of  repealing  or  reducing  our 
duties  on  wine  and  silk  and  one  or  two  other  articles,  which  are 
not  produced  in  the  U.  S.  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  the 
Emperor  would  be  most  happy  to  be  asked  to  draw  the  com 
mercial  and  political  relations  of  the  two  governments  closer. 
If  we  could  get  rid  of  the  tonnage  dues  alone  it  would  be  a 
great  relief. 

Yours  very  respectfully 


parties,  were  so  violent  that  his  course  was  suspended,  and  not  long  after  the 
lectureship  itself  was  suppressed. 

The  last  time  I  met  M.  Renan  was  as  a  guest  of  Hippolyte  Taine  in  the 
winter  of  1890.  He  had  become  very  stout  and,  like  Taine  in  his  later 
days,  tres  reactionnaire.  He  no  longer  believed  that  the  French  could  govern 
themselves,  but  that  they  needed  to  be  governed.  He  seemed  also  to  have 
begun  to  realize  that  he  was  approaching  the  close  of  une  vie  manquee;  that 
as  a  theologian  he  had  wasted  his  days  in  trying  to  extract  sunbeams  from 
cucumbers,  and  that  if  his  works  were  to  insure  him  any  post-mortem  fame, 
it  would  be  as  a  literary  artist,  but  not  as  either  a  philosopher  or  historian. 


EXILE  FOB  MASON  AND   SLIDELL  473 


SEWAED  TO  BTGELOW 

Unofficial 

WASHINGTON,  March  7,  1862. 
My  dear  Mr.  Bigelow, 

I  hope  it  is  true  that  the  person  has  had  the  interview1  with 
the  Emperor  and  held  [illegible]  to  what  is  reported  as  the 
effect  of  this  conversation.  It  can  do  no  harm  now.  Memphis 
Capitalists  and  Bankers  are  now  retiring  to  New  Orleans  for 
safety,  the  New  Orleans  Capitalists  and  Bankers  will  be  soon 
envying  Mr.  Slidell  &  his  troublesome  escape  out  of  the 
country. 

Faithfully  yours 


SEWAED  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  March  15,  1862. 
My  dear  Sir: 

I  have  your  note  concerning  M.  Billault's  speech— its  im 
pression  is  fully  understood  here. 

Our  affairs  continue  prosperous,  the  events  at  Norfolk 
create  a  puzzle  and  a  little  solicitude.  But  we  can  build  our 
iron  clad  steamers,  and  build  them  quicker,  and  that  will  set  us 
up  completely. 

Mr.  Mason 's  town  of  Winchester  has  fallen  into  our  hands. 
Mr.  Slideirs  greater  city  is  likely  to  come  in  very  soon.  They 
will  find  their  exile  convenient  though  inglorious. 

Faithfully  yours 

Deferring  to  Mr.  Brown's  report  of  an  interview  between  Slidell  and 
the  Emperor. 


474        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

GEOEGE  BANCBOFT  TO  BIGELOW 

NEW  YORK,  March  25,  1862. 

Our  Secessionists  die  hard :  the  pro-slavery  feeling  is  at  this 
moment  stronger  than  ever,  and  I  do  not  yet  see  how  we  are  to 
restore  union  feeling.  I  look  forward  to  a  more  angry  collision 
of  opinion  than  ever  on  the  subject  of  the  negro ;  and  a  mad 
ness  in  favor  of  slavery,  that  will  not  reason,  and  perhaps  that 
will  not  remain  at  peace. 

Best  regards  to  Mrs.  Bigelow.    I  am  ever,  dear  Bigelow, 

Very  faithfully  yours 


BIGELOW  TO  SEWAED 

PARIS,  March  27,  1862. 
Dear  Sir: 

Judge  Eustis  called  at  our  Consulate  on  Monday  on  behalf 
of  Mr.  &  Mrs.  Slidell  to  make  an  appointment  with  me  for  the 
execution  of  a  deed  to  some  real  estate  in  Iowa  and  in  Wis 
consin  to  a  Mr.  Kay  of  Boston.  It  appeared  from  Mr.  Eustis' 
statement  and  from  the  deed,  that  Mr.  Slidell  had  conveyed  his 
interest  in  the  property  in  May,  1861,  to  Barlow  and  Belmont 
of  New  York  or  either  of  them,  in  trust  to  convey  to  purchas 
ers,  and  the  main  purpose  of  the  new  conveyance  was  to  convey 
Mrs.  SlidelPs  dower-right  and  also  to  confirm  the  title  derived 
by  Mr.  Bay  through  the  trustee.  Mr.  Eustis  also  coupled  his 
application  with  the  request,  that  I  would  meet  the  parties, 
when  convenient  for  me,  at  Vandenbroek  Bros. '  banking  house, 
which  is  in  the  same  edifice  with  my  office.  This  proposition 
of  course  I  declined  very  promptly  and  gave  Mr.  Eustis  to 
understand,  that  even  if  it  were  more  convenient  for  Mrs. 
Slidell  to  rendezvous  at  the  bankers '  than  at  my  office— which  it 
was  not,— there  were  other,  public  considerations,  which  would 
deny  me  the  pleasure  of  extending  to  her  any  such  courtesy. 
He  then  promised  to  call  the  next  day  and  did  so,  accompanied 


THE  FATAL  BLOW  TO  WOODEN  SHIPS         475 

by  the  parties.  Our  interview  was  without  special  signifi 
cance.  No  allusion  was  made  to  American  affairs.  I  suppose 
their  minds  were  somewhat  preoccupied  with  the  news  of  the 
retreat  of  the  Confederate  Army  from  Manassas,  which  had 
just  arrived.  The  day  before,  Eustis  and  I  discussed  the 
President's  proclamation  about  purchasing  the  slaves.  He 
thought  the  question  of  compensation  would  be  embarrassing 
in  view  of  the  condition  of  the  treasury.  I  replied,  that  if,  as 
was  to  be  presumed  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  the  proposal 
had  been  made  with  the  approval  of  Slaveholders,  the  money 
question  would  solve  itself,  and  at  all  events  would  prove  a 
cheaper  artillery  than  powder  and  balls. 

Mr.  Weed,  who  is  now  in  Paris,  mentioned  to  me  that  these 
lands  conveyed  by  Mr.  Slidell  were  some  he  received  for  cer 
tain  railroad  charters  granted  by  Congress. 

Apropos  of  the  President's  Proclamation  or  Message 
rather,  about  redeeming  the  slaves,  which  I  need  hardly  say 
has  removed  much  distrust  of  our  motives  in  Europe,  I  have 
seen  a  letter  written  by  Lord  Brougham  from  Cannes  on  the 
24th,  from  which  I  am  permitted  to  take  the  following  para 
graph  : 

"What  a  sad  state  of  things  in  America.  I  have  less  than 
no  hope  of  this  last  move  (slavery)  succeeding.  But  you  were 
unquestionably  right  to  try  it. ' ' 

It  all  depends  upon  what  his  Lordship  means  by  "succeed 
ing."  There  can  be  no  doubt,  I  suppose,  that  it  is  an  impor 
tant  step  in  the  right  direction,  though,  of  course,  not  the 
whole  journey.  Within  an  hour  after  the  news  arrived  of 
the  devastating  visit  of  the  Merrimac  in  Hampton  Eoads  on 
the  9th  and  10th  the  fate  of  wooden  vessels  of  war  was  settled 
forever.1  The  revelations  of  that  day  will  be  much  more  'ex 
pensive  to  the  other  maritime  powers,  than  the  day's  doings 
were  to  us,  for  every  dockyard  will  be  put  to  its  last  resource 
in  plating  everything  that  carries  guns. 

1  For  a  most  excellent  account  of  the  battle  of  the  Merrimac  and  Monitor, 
see  Nicolay  and  Hay's  Life  of  Lincoln,  Vol.  V,  pp.  218-238,  from  which  I 
quote  the  following  paragraph:  "Counted  merely  by  blows  received  and 
given,  it  was  a  drawn  battle.  But,  practically,  a  victory,  which  seemed 
providential  in  its  sudden  relief  and  immense  results,  remained  with  the 
Monitor.  The  whole  event  was  still  broader  in  its  effect.  That  three  hours' 
battle  in  Hampton  Roads  changed  the  conditions  of  naval  warfare  for  the 
whole  world." 


476        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

The  impression  here  is  universal  that  peace  will  be  restored 
by  June,— it  is  derived  of  course  not  from  American  authori 
ties,  but  I  presume  from  the  French  government  who  desire  to 
quiet  the  public  mind  as  much  as  possible  in  regard  to  trade 
and  to  encourage  merchants  to  send  in  orders  to  the  manufac 
turers. 

Yours,  &c. 


BIGELOW  TO  HARGKEAVES 

PARIS,  April  3rd,  1862. 

My  dear  Mr.  Har greaves: 

•          •••••••• 

Unfortunately  we  have  given  your  Govt.  a  new  pretext  for 
spending  more  money  on  the  Navy.  The  battle  of  Hampton 
roads  was  what  might  be  termed,  in  sporting  phrase,  an  eye- 
opener  to  all  the  world.  If  your  fleet  however  had  gone  out  as 
was  proposed,  to  open  our  blockade  and  take  Portland,  they 
might  have  got  their  experience  in  a  more  expensive  way.  It 
is  not  likely  your  Govt.  would  have  sent  a  single  vessel  that  a 
ship  like  the  Monitor  could  not  have  sunk  in  twenty  minutes. 
Does  this  revelation  make  the  war  party  any  wiser?  The 
Times  certainly  sings  more  gently  of  late.  The  fact  is  that 
that  event  teaches  all  nations  that  in  the  work  of  destruction 
the  battle  is  not  always  to  the  strong  nor  the  race  to  the  swift. 
For  my  own  part  I  am  full  of  solicitude  about  our  own  ports. 
It  is  impossible  to  say  that  there  are  not  more  vessels  like  the 
Merrimac  lurking  in  the  Southern  waters,  ready  or  getting 
ready  to  pounce  upon  our  unprotected  navy.  It  is  impossible 
not  to  admire  the  ability  displayed  by  the  rebels  in  the  use  of 
their  limited  resources  and  it  is  hardly  credible  that  with 
many  of  the  best  officers  of  our  Army  and  Navy  to  counsel 
with,  they  have  overlooked  the  advantage  which  a  few  iron 
clad  boats  at  New  Orleans  and  other  ports  on  the  gulf  would 
give  them.  It  is  reported  here  that  they  had  one  built  in  Eng 
land  and  sent  out,  but  the  evidence  is  not  yet  conclusive.  We 
shall  soon  be  ready  for  any  contingency  of  that  sort  but  mean 
time  we  cannot  but  feel  anxious.  This  danger  out  of  the  way 


THE  EMPEROR'S  ERRONEOUS  STEP     477 

the  prospects  of  a  speedy  peace  are  excellent.  Nothing  but 
what  looks  to  the  rebels  like  a  chance  of  success,  will  keep 
them  in  the  field  half  an  hour.  When  the  Southern  planters 
become  disabused  of  the  impression  which  the  late  scenes  at 
Columbus  and  Nashville  show  were  quite  universal,  that  their 
property  would  be  appropriated  by  our  army  without  com 
pensation,  I  think  they  will  be  more  disposed  to  listen  to  rea 
son.  Hitherto  there  has  been  no  way  of  conveying  this 
assurance  to  them.  Now  however  the  people  of  Tennessee, 
who  will  be  credible  witnesses  in  Alabama  and  Mississippi  and 
Louisiana  and  in  fact  throughout  the  South,  will  be  competent 
and  disposed  to  disabuse  their  Southern  friends  of  the  delusion 
which  is  so  destructive  to  their  property  and  so  unfavorable  to 
reconciliation.  It  is  to  be  hoped  and  I  think  to  be  expected 
that  the  experience  by  the  Tennesseans,  of  the  respect  paid  by 
our  army  to  private  property,  may  prevent  the  future  destruc 
tion  of  the  crops  to  any  considerable  extent. 

Yours,  &c. 


SEWARD  TO  BIGELOW 

Unofficial  and  Confidential 

DEPARTMENT  OF  STATE, 

WASHINGTON,  April  5,  1862. 
Sir: 

The  account  of  the  domestic  troubles  of  the  French  Gov 
ernment  which  you  have  given  me  in  your  letter  *of  the  llth 
is  very  interesting. 

It  does  not  seem  to  me  probable  that  discontents  will  speedily 
ripen  into  Eevolution  in  France,  and  indeed  I  hope  they  may 
not.  The  interest  of  France,  like  our  own,  is  peace.  Civil  war 
in  Europe  would  bring  various  complications  for  ourselves. 
We  could  not  sympathize,  and  .yet  revolutionists  would  think 
they  had  claims  upon  us,  because  they  would  of  course  espouse 
our  cause. 

The  Government  could  make  itself  strong  by  a  prompt  re- 


478        RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

sumption  of  the  relations  towards  the  United  States  which  it 
maintained  before  it  lent  its  unnecessary  recognition  to  the 
insurgents  as  a  belligerent  power.  But  even  the  Emperor 
finds  it  difficult,  I  suppose,  to  retrace  an  erroneous  step  in 
Administration. 

It  is  strange  to  think  how  thoughtlessly  he  has  hazarded  a 
valuable  friendship. 

I  am,  Sir,  Your  obedient  servant 


JUDAH  PETER  BENJAMIN1  TO  JOHN  SLTDELL 

Confidential 

DEPARTMENT  OF  STATE, 

RICHMOND,  April  12th,  1862. 

No.  3. 
Sir: 

A  reference  to  the  despatches  of  my  predecessor  suggested  a  doubt 
whether  they  are  quite  so  definite  on  one  or  two  points  as  may  be 
desirable  in  order  to  place  you  fully  in  possession  of  the  President's 
views. 

It  is  of  course  quite  impossible  at  this  distance  and  with  communica 
tions  so  imperfect,  to  ascertain  precisely  the  extent  to  which  the  Gov 
ernment  of  the  Emperor  may  be  committed  by  the  understanding 
reported  to  exist  between  France  and  England  on  the  subject  of  our 
affairs.  There  are  however  certain  points  on  which  the  interests  of 
the  two  countries  are  so  distinct,  if  not  conflicting,  that  the  Presi 
dent  can  scarcely  suppose  his  imperial  Majesty  so  far  to  have  relin 
quished  his  right  of  independent  action  as  to  be  entirely  precluded 
from  entering  into  any  commercial  conventions  whatever.  If  there 
fore  the  impression  of  the  President  be  not  ill-founded,  you  may  per 
haps  be  able  to  effect  negotiations  on  the  basis  of  certain  commercial 
advantages  to  be  accorded  to  the  French  people.  On  this  hypothesis, 
I  proceed  to  lay  before  you  the  views  of  this  Government.  As  a  general 
rule  it  is  undoubtedly  desirable  that  our  relations  with  all  countries 
should  be  placed  on  the  same  common  footing;  that  our  commercial 
intercourse  should  be  as  free  as  is  compatible  with  the  neces- 

1  Benjamin  was  born  in  Santo  Domingo,  in  1812,  of  Jewish  parents,  who  em 
igrated  to  New  Orleans  in  1816.  He  was  a  soldier  of  fortune  politically.  Pres 
ident  Davis  appointed  him  his  Secretary  of  State.  At  the  fall  of  the  Confede 
racy  he  took  refuge  in  London,  where  he  died. 


FRANCE  OFFERED  A  BRIBE  TO  INTERVENE   479 

sity  of  raising  revenue  from  moderate  duties  and  imposts.  But  in 
the  exceptional  position  which  we  now  occupy,  struggling  for  existence 
against  an  enemy  whose  vastly  superior  resources  for  obtaining  the 
material  of  war  place  us  at  great  disadvantage,  it  becomes  of  pri 
mary  importance  to  neglect  no  means  of  opening  our  ports,  and 
thereby  obtaining  the  articles  most  needed  for  the  supply  of  the  army. 
If  therefore  by  a  convention,  conceding  to  the  French  Emperor  the 
right  of  introducing  French  products  into  this  country  free  of  duty 
for  a  certain  defined  period,  it  were  possible  to  induce  his  abandon 
ment  of  the  policy  hitherto  pursued,  of  acquiescence  in  the  inter 
diction  placed  by  the  Northern  Government  on  commerce  with  these 
states,  the  President  would  approve  of  your  action  in  making  a 
treaty  on  such  a  basis.  With  your  enlarged  experience  of  public 
affairs  and  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  resources  and  commercial 
necessities  of  the  South,  the  President  does  not  deem  it  necessary  to 
enter  into  any  detailed  instructions  in  relation  to  the  terms  of  such 
a  treaty. 

There  is  however  one  contingency  to  be  foreseen  on  which  you 
might  not  feel  at  liberty  to  commit  this  government,  and  which  it  is 
therefore  proper  to  anticipate.  It  is  well  understood  that  there 
exists  at  present  a  temporary  embarrassment  in  the  finances  of  France, 
which  might  have  the  effect  of  deterring  that  Government  from 
initiating  a  policy  likely  to  superinduce  the  necessity  for  naval  ex 
peditions.  If  under  these  circumstances  you  should  after  cautious 
inquiry  be  able  to  satisfy  yourself  that  the  grant  of  a  subsidy  for 
defraying  the  expenses  of  such  expeditions  would  suffice  for  remov 
ing  any  obstacle  to  an  arrangement  or  understanding  with  the  Em 
peror,  you  are  at  liberty  to  enter  into  engagements  to  that  effect. 
In  such  event  the  agreement  would  take  the  form  most  advantageous 
to  this  country,  by  a  stipulation  to  deliver  on  this  side  a  certain  num 
ber  of  bales  of  cotton  to  be  received  by  the  merchant  vessels  of  France 
at  certain  designated  ports.  In  this  manner  one  hundred  thousand 
bales  of  cotton  of  500  pounds  each,  costing  this  Government  but 
$4,500,000,  would  represent  a  grant  to  France  of  not  less  than 
$12,500,000  or  Fr's  63,000,000,  if  cotton  be  worth  as  we  suppose  not 
less  than  25  cents  per  pound  in  Europe.  Such  a  sum  would  maintain 
afloat  a  considerable  fleet  for  a  length  of  time  quite  sufficient  to  open 
the  Atlantic  and  Gulf  ports  to  the  commerce  of  France.  I  do  not 
state  this  sum  as  the  limit  to  which  you  would  be  authorized  to  go 
in  making  a  negotiation  on  the  subject,  but  to  place  clearly  before 
you  the  advantage  which  would  result  in  stipulating  for  payment  in 
cotton. 

Again,  vessels  sent  from  France  under  convoy  to  receive  the  cotton 
granted  as  a  subsidy,  would  of  course  be  sent  with  cargoes  of  such 
merchandise  as  is  needed  in  the  Confederacy.  Now  the  prices  of  for- 


480        RETROSPECTIONS  OP  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

eign  goods  are,  at  the  very  lowest  price,  and  in  many  articles,  four 
or  five  fold  'the  cost  in  Europe ;  it  is  difficult  to  approximate  the 
amount  of  profit  that  would  accrue  from  such  a  shipment,  but  it 
ought  at  least  to  equal  that  on  the  cotton  taken  back ;  so  that  the  pro 
ceeds  of  the  cotton  granted  as  a  subsidy  and  the  profits  on  the  cargoes 
of  the  vessels  sent  to  receive  it,  would  scarcely  fall  short  of  F's 
100,000,000.  On  this  basis  you  will  readily  perceive  the  extent  to 
which  the  finances  of  France  might  find  immediate  and  permanent 
relief,  if  the  subsidy  were  doubled ;  and  the  enormous  advantages  that 
would  accrue  to  the  Government  if  by  their  opening  one  or  more  of 
the  Southern  Ports  to  its  own  commerce  the  interchange  of  com 
modities  should  absorb  half  a  million  or  a  million  of  bales.  If  it 
should  be  your  good  fortune  to  succeed  in  this  delicate  and  difficult 
negotiation,  you  might  well  consider  that  practically  our  struggle 
would  have  been  brought  to  a  successful  termination,  for  you  would 
of  course  not  fail  to  make  provision  for  the  necessary  supply  of  small 
arms  and  powder  to  enable  us  to  confront  our  foes  triumphantly. 

I  have  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  a  sufficient  sum  of  secret 
service  money  has  not  hitherto  been  placed  at  the  disposal  of  our 
diplomatic  agents  abroad.  With  enemies  so  active,  so  unscrupulous; 
and  with  a  system  of  deception  so  thoroughly  organized  as  that  now 
established  by  them  abroad,  it  becomes  absolutely  essential  that  no 
means  be  spared  for  the  dissemination  of  truth,  and  for  a  fair  ex 
position  of  our  condition  and  policy  before  foreign  nations.  It  is  not 
wise  to  neglect  public  opinion,  nor  prudent  to  leave  to  the  voluntary 
interposition  of  friends,  often  indiscreet,  the  duty  of  vindicating  our 
country  and  its  cause  before  the  tribunal  of  civilized  man.  The 
President  sharing  these  views  has  authorized  me  to  place  at  your  dis 
posal  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  which  you  will  find  to  your  credit 
with  Messrs.  Fraser,  Trenholm  &  Co.  of  Liverpool,  and  which  you  will 
use  for  the  service  of  your  country  in  such  way  as  you  may  deem  most 
judicious,  with  special  view  however  to  the  necessity  of  the  enlighten 
ment  of  public  opinion  in  Europe  through  the  Press. 

I  am,  Sir,  &c. 


BENJAMIN  TO  JAMES  M.  MASON 

DEPARTMENT  OP  STATE, 

RICHMOND,  April  12th,  1862. 
bir: 

I  have  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  the  interests  of  the  Confed 
eracy   require   a   more   liberal   appropriation   of   the    funds   of   the 


DE  LEON'S  FOREIGN  MISSION  481 

Department  in  our  foreign  service.  With  enemies  so  active,  so  un 
scrupulous;  and  with  a  system  of  deception  so  thoroughly  organized 
as  that  now  established  by  them  abroad  it  becomes  absolutely  essen 
tial  that  no  means  be  spared  for  the  dissemination  of  the  truth  and  for 
a  fair  exposition  of  our  condition  and  policy  before  foreign  nations. 
It  is  not  wise  to  neglect  public  opinion,  nor  prudent  to  leave  to  the 
voluntary  interposition  of  friends,  often  indiscreet,  the  duty  of  vin 
dicating  our  country  and  its  cause  before  the  tribunal  of  civilized 
men.  The  President  shares  these  views,  and  I  have  therefore  with 
his  assent,  and  under  his  instructions,  appointed  Edwin  de  Leon,  Esq., 
formerly  Consul  General  of  the  United  States  at  Alexandria,  con 
fidential  agent  of  the  department  and  he  has  been  supplied  with 
twenty-five  thousand  dollars  as  a  secret  service  fund,  to  be  used  by 
him  in  the  manner  he  may  deem  most  judicious,  both  in  Great  Britain 
and  the  continent,  for  the  special  purpose  of  enlightening  public 
opinion  in  Europe  through  the  press.  Mr.  de  Leon  possesses  to  a 
high  degree  the  confidence  of  the  President  as  a  man  of  discretion, 
ability  and  thorough  devotion  to  our  cause.  He  will  bear  to  you  this 
dispatch,  and  I  trust  you  will  give  to  him  on  all  occasions  the  bene 
fit  of  your  counsel,  and  impart  to  him  all  information  you  may  think 
it  expedient  to  make  public,  so  as  to  facilitate  him  in  obtaining  such 
position  and  influence  amongst  leading  journalists  and  men  of  letters 
as  will  enable  him  most  effectually  to  serve  our  cause  in  the  special 
sphere  assigned  to  him. 

•  •••••••• 

I  am,  sir,  very  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant 


XII 

OPERATIONS  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY  IN  FRANCE 
SEWARD  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  April  14,  1862. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

I  HAVE  your  note  of  the  29th  of  March.    It  is  something 
that  Mr.  Slidell  recognizes  .your  Consular  Authority— of 
course  you  will  not  reciprocate  the  courtesy  by  admitting 
his  diplomatic  pretensions.    The  Maritime  Powers  could  close 
the  war  and  open  the  ports  in  a  day  by  rescinding  or  revok 
ing  belligerent  character  conceded  unnecessarily  to  the  bel 
ligerents. 

Faithfully  yours 

Foote  and  Porter  will  probably  open  the  Mississippi  at  both 
ends  before  the  recognizing  powers  conclude  to  consider. 


SLIDELL  TO  BENJAMIN 

PARIS,  18th  April,  1862. 
Sir: 

Referring  you  to  my  No.  5  of  the  14th  instant,  I  have  now  to  report 
that  Mr.  Lindsay  returned  here  yesterday,  and  today  saw  the  Emperor. 
Earl  Russell,  in  response  to  a  note  which  Lindsay  had  addressed  to 
him,  stating  that  he  was  charged  with  an  important  message  from 
the  Emperor,  said  that  he  could  receive  no  communications  from  a 
foreign  power,  excepting  through  the  regular  diplomatic  channels. 
The  tone  of  this  response  was  flippant,  although  perhaps  intended 
to  be  sarcastic.  Lindsay  saw  Disraeli,  who  expressed  great  interest 
in  our  affairs  and  fully  concurred  in  the  views  of  the  Emperor;  he 

482 


NEW  ORLEANS  AND  THE  EMPEROR  483 

said  that  he  had  the  best  reason  to  believe  that  a  secret  understand 
ing  existed  between  Lord  Russell  and  Seward;  that  England  would 
respect  the  federal  blockade  and  withhold  our  recognition;  that  if 
France  would  take  the  initiative,  any  course  she  might  adopt  to  put 
an  end  to  the  present  state  of  American  affairs  would  be  undoubtedly 
supported  by  a  large  majority  in  Parliament,  and  knowing  this,  Lord 
Russell  would  give  a  reluctant  assent,  to  avoid  what  would  otherwise 
certainly  follow :  a  change  of  ministry. — 

Lindsay  of  course  related  to  the  Emperor  all  that  had  passed;  he 
is  more  disappointed  than  ever,  repeating  what  he  had  said  in  his 
previous  conversations,  and  what  I  had  forgotten  to  put  in  my  notes 
to  them,  to  wit :  that  since  Thouvenel  's  note  to  Mercier  on  the  Trent 
affair,  England  instead  of  appreciating  his  friendly  offices,  as  he  had 
a  right  to  expect,  seemed  to  be  less  disposed  to  act  cordially;  that 
Lord  Russell  had  dealt  unfairly  in  sending  to  Lord  Lyons  copies  of 
his  representations,  made  through  the  Minister  at  London,  on  the  sub 
ject  of  American  affairs,  and  which  has  been  made  known  to  Seward. 
He  [the  Emperor]  heard  Lindsay's  notes  of  conversation  with  Dis 
raeli  with  great  interest,  and  seemed  particularly  struck  with  what  he 
had  said  about  the  private  understanding  already  mentioned,  as  af 
fording  a  key  to  what  he  had  not  before  been  able  to  comprehend,  and 
with  the  suggestion  that  if  he  were  to  act  alone,  Earl  Russell  would 
soon  be  compelled  to  follow  his  example.  .  .  . 

He  repeated  that  while  he  desired  to  preserve  a  strict  neutrality, 
he  could  not  consent  that  his  people  should  continue  to  suffer  from  the 
action  of  the  Federal  government.  He  thought  that  the  best  course 
would  be  to  make  a  friendly  appeal  to  it,  either  alone  or  concurrently 
with  England,  to  open  the  ports,  but  to  accompany  the  'appeal  with 
a  proper  demonstration  of  force  on  our  coasts  and  should  the  appeal 
appear  likely  to  be  ineffectual  to  back  it  by  a  declaration  of  his  pur 
pose  not  to  respect  blockade. 

The  taking  of  New  Orleans,  which  he  did  not  anticipate,  might 
render  it  inexpedient  to  act,  that  he  would  not  decide  at  once,  but 
would  wait  for  some  days  for  further  intelligence,  but  the  impression 
of  Lindsay  from  the  whole  tenor  of  his  conversation  is  that  the  ques 
tion  would  not  remain  long  unsettled. 

The  Emperor  said  to  Lindsay  he  wished  that  what  had  passed  be 
tween  them  should  not  become  public,  and  I  have  therefore  to  beg 
that  this,  and  my  preceding  despatch,  should  be  known  to  as  few 
persons  as  possible. 

Measures  have  been  taken  to  procure  petitions  from  the  Chambers 
of  Commerce  of  the  principal  cities,  asking  the  intervention  of  the 
Emperor  to  restore  commercial  relations  with  the  Southern  States. 
With  great  respect, 

Your  most  obedient  servant 


484        RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 


MEMORANDUM  OF  DISPATCH  NO.  5 

Mr.  Lindsay,  on  Friday,  llth  April,  had  by  appointment  an  interview 
with  the  Emperor,  having  received  on  the  previous  evening  a  note 
from  Mocquard,  his  private  secretary,  inviting  his  presence  at  the 
Tuileries  at  1  P.M.  The  Emperor  said  to  Mr.  Lindsay  that  he  had 
been  led  to  desire  the  interview  by  M.  Thouvenel;  having  been  in 
formed  by  M.  Rouher,  Minister  of  Commerce,  of  a  conversation  which 
he  had  that  morning  with  Mr.  Lindsay.  After  some  preliminary 
conversation  about  the  navigation  laws  of  France,  the  scheme  of  es 
tablishing  a  line  of  steamers  from  Bordeaux  to  New  Orleans,  under 
the  patronage  of  the  French  Government,  was  spoken  of,  and  this 
of  course  led  to  the  American  question.  Mr.  Lindsay  spoke  of  the 
Federal  blockade  as  being  ineffectual  and  not  in  accordance  with  the 
4th  article  of  the  declaration  of  the  Congress  of  Paris,  and  mentioned 
facts  in  support  of  his  opinion.  The  Emperor  fully  concurred  in 
Mr.  L.'s  opinion,  and  said  he  would  long  since  have  declared  the 
inefficiency  of  the  blockade  and  taken  the  necessary  steps  to  put  an 
end  to  it,  but  that  he  could  not  obtain  the  concurrence  of  the  English 
Ministry,  and  that  he  had  been,  and  was  still,  unwilling  to  act  without 
it.  That  M.  Thouvenel  had  twice  addressed  to  the  British  Govern 
ment,  through  the  Ambassador  at  London,  representations  to  that 
effect,  but  that  no  definite  response  had  been  elicited.  The  dates  of 
these  representations  were  not  mentioned  by  the  Emperor,  but  M. 
Rouher  had  said  to  Mr.  Lindsay  that  the  first  had  been  made  during 
the  past  summer,  say  in  June,  and  the  other  about  four  weeks  ago. 
Mr.  L.  then  adverted  to  the  present  sufferings  of  the  laboring  classes 
of  France  and  England,  mainly  caused  by  the  interruption  of  the 
supply  of  cotton  from  the  Confederate  States;  sufferings  which  even 
now  were  calculated  to  excite  very  serious  apprehensions  in  both  coun 
tries,  but  which  were  from  week  to  week  becoming  more  aggravated, 
and  which  in  two  or  three  months  would  become  absolutely  intolerable. 
That  the  time  for  action  had  arrived,  for  if  the  remedy  were  not 
soon  applied  very  serious  consequences  might  be  anticipated.  To 
all  these  remarks  the  Emperor  gave  his  most  unqualified  assent,  but 
asked,  what  was  to  be  done?  Mr.  L.  said  that  the  recognition  of  the 
Confederate  States  would  do  much  to  mitigate  the  danger ;  that  if  the 
two  powers  were  not  prepared  to  act  immediately,  some  other  neutral 
nations  might  take  the  initiative,  and  that  being  thus  taken,  France 
and  England  might  ih*voke  the  example  and  follow  it.  He  named 
especially  Spain  and  Belgium,  but  the  Emperor  replied  that  he  did 
not  think  Spain  would  be  willing  to  assume  the  responsibility  of  put- 


ANOTHER  INTERVIEW  WITH  NAPOLEON       485 

ting  herself  in  the  breach,  and  that  as  to  Belgium,  England  was  the 
proper  power  to  make  the  suggestion.  Mr.  L.  then  went  on  to  say 
that  not  only  the  interests  of  Europe  required  the  war  to  be  put  an 
end  to,  but  that  every  principle  of  humanity  demanded  prompt  inter 
vention  to  stop  so  dreadful  an  effusion  of  blood  and  the  mutual  ex 
haustion  of  both  parties;  that  everybody  who  knew  anything  of  the 
hostility  between  the  two  sections  was  convinced  that  the  Union  could 
not  be  restored,  and  that  even  if  the  South  were  overrun,  she  could 
never  be  subjugated.  That  she  was  carrying  on  a  most  unequal  con 
test,  rendered  still  more  unequal  by  the  submission  of  neutral  powers 
to  an  inefficient  blockade;  that  while  professing  to  be  neutral,  they 
were  not  so  in  fact,  as  the  Northern  States  were  receiving  unlimited 
supplies  of  arms,  munitions  of  war,  clothing,  and  of  every  article 
necessary  to  the  support  of  their  armies,  while  the  South  was  effec 
tually  cut  off  frt>m  supplies  of  every  kind,  which,  being  a  purely 
agricultural  people,  they  could  not  manufacture  for  themselves.  To 
these  remarks  the  Emperor  also  fully  assented.  Mr.  L.  went  on  to 
say  that  the  North  was  not  making  war,  as  many  pretended,  for  the 
abolition  of  slavery,  but  to  subjugate  the  South  in  order  to  reestablish 
their  protective  tariff  and  to  restore  their  monopoly  of  Southern  mar 
kets.  That  for  proof  of  this  assertion  it  was  only  necessary  to  refer 
to  Mr.  Lincoln's  inaugural  and  message,  the  proclamations  of  his 
generals,  and  the  continued  existence  of  slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia,  which  Lincoln  might  have  put  an  end  to  a  year  ago.  That 
he  knew  many  Northern  men  and  had  a  very  extensive  correspondence 
with  them,  and  all  agreed  that  not  one  Northern  man  in  ten  desired  the 
abolition  of  slavery,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  knew  it  would 
be  destructive  to  their  own  interests.  The  Emperor  said  that  he  be 
lieved  that  this  was  a  true  statement  of  the  case;  what  then  was  to 
be  done?  He  could  not  again  address  the  English  Ministry  through 
the  official  channels  without  some  reason  to  believe  that  his  repre 
sentations  would  receive  a  favorable  response.  That  for  that  reason 
he  had  been  desirous  to  see  Mr.  Lindsay ;  that  he  was  prepared  to  act 
promptly  and  decidedly ;  that  he  would  at  once  dispatch  a  formidable 
fleet  to  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  if  England  would  send  an  equal 
force ;  that  they  would  demand  free  egress  and  ingress  for  their  mer 
chantmen,  with  their  cargoes  of  goods  and  supplies  of  cotton,  which 
were  essential  to  the  world.  The  Emperor  said  that  while  he  had 
always  deplored  the  Civil  War  in  America,  he  had  carefully  refrained 
from  any  interference  in  this  domestic  quarrel;  that  so  long  as  the 
interests  of  France  were  not  too  greatly  compromised,  he  had  adhered 
to  this  policy,  but  when  the  action  of  the  Federal  Government  pro 
duced  such  mischievous  results  as  were  now  apparent,  he  felt  com 
pelled  to  protect  the  interests  of  France.  That  he  had  from  the  first 
considered  the  restoration  of  the  Union  impossible,  and  for  that  reason 


486        RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

had  deprecated  the  continuation  of  a  contest  which  could  not  lead 
to  any  other  result  than  separation.  He  authorized  Mr.  L.  to  make 
this  statement  to  Lord  Cowley,  and  to  ascertain  whether  he  would 
recommend  the  course  indicated  to  his  Government.  He  asked  Mr.  L. 
to  defer  his  intended  departure  for  London  until  Sunday  night,  and 
fixed  Sunday,  11  A.M.,  for  further  interview,  so  that  he  might  com 
municate  the  result  of  his  conversation  with  Lord  Cowley.  Mr.  L. 
reported  on  Sunday,  13th  inst.,  to  the  Emperor  the  details  of  the 
conversation  he  had  with  Lord  Cowley,  the  substance  of  which  was 
that  he  did  not  think  his  Government  was  prepared  to  act  at  present, 
that  the  proper  moment  for  action  had  passed,  and  further  develop 
ments  should  be  waited  for.  The  Emperor  was  even  more  emphatic 
than  on  Friday  in  the  expression  of  his  opinions ;  he  requested  Mr.  L. 
to  see  Lords  Russell  and  Palmerston,  and  communicate  to  them  every 
thing  that  had  passed.  He  seemed  much  dissatisfied  with  the  course 
of  England.  He  also  wished  Mr.  L.  to  see  Lord  Derby  and  Mr.  Dis 
raeli,  not  as  coming  from  him,  because  it  would  not  be  proper  to 
address  himself  to  the  leaders  of  the  opposition,  but  that  they  might 
be  informed  of  his  views  and  wishes.  He  asked  Mr.  L.  to  inform 
himself  fully  of  the  intentions  of  Lord  Russell,  etc.,  and  to  return 
as  soon  as  possible  to  give  him  the  result.  He  said  he  did  not  desire 
to  be  embarrassed  by  the  forms  and  delays  of  diplomacy,  as  he  felt 
the  necessity  for  immediate  action. 

Mr.  L.  inferred,  more  from  his  manner  than  from  what  he  said,  that 
he  was  dissatisfied  with  his  present  position,  which  made  his  action 
subordinate  to  the  policy  of  England,  and  that  he  might  be  disposed  to 
act  alone. 


At  the  time  the  following  letter  was  written,  Juarez  was 
President  of  Mexico.  For  two  years  he  had  suspended  pay 
ment  of  its  national  debt.  The  French  legation  had  been  fired 
on  and  a  tax  of  one  per  cent,  levied  on  all  capital  exceeding 
$2000.  On  October  31,  1861,  the  Treaty  of  London  was  con 
cluded,  which,  bound  England,  France  and  Spain  to  send 
troops  to  Mexico  to  take  possession  of  the  custom-houses  of 
some  of  the  seaboard  towns  and  collect  what  one  at  least  of 
the  allies,  if  not  all,  pretended  to  esteem  his  dues.  The 
United  States  declined  to  enter  into  this  partnership.  The 
partners  soon  disagreed;  England  and  Spain  withdrew,  and 
France  was  left  alone. 


THE  FRENCH  ARMY  ALONE  IN  MEXICO       487 
BIGELOW  TO  SEWAED 

Private 

PARIS,  April  28,  1862. 
My  dear  Mr.  Seward: 

I  have  just  learned  on  an  authority  at  but  one  remove  from 
Lord  Palmerston,  that  England  withdrew  her  forces  from 
Mexico  in  consequence  of  a  claim  for  a  large  amount  trumped 
up  by  France,  after  the  claims  of  the  respective  parties  and 
their  terms  of  adjustment  had  been  agreed  upon.  This  has 
created  a  disagreeable  state  of  feeling  between  the  two  gov 
ernments,  as  you  are  doubtless  already  aware,  all  evidences 
of  which  are  carefully  kept  from  the  public  as  far  as 
possible,  England  not  being  able  to  afford  the  existence 
of  an  impression  that  she  and  France  are  not  well  with 
each  other.  The  100  men  left  in  Mexico  with  the  British  flag 
over  them  are  merely  to  ratify  the  execution  of  the  agreement 
entered  into  by  the  allies  and  Mexico,  if  France  should  con 
clude  to  do  it,  the  remainder  of  the  force  having  been  removed 
to  show  England's  determination  to  have  no  responsibility  for 
any  step  that  may  be  taken  to  enforce  trumpery  claims.  It  is 
not  easy  to  see  how  this  difficulty  can  get  air  without  making 
bad  blood  between  the  people  of  the  two  countries  as  well  as 
between  the  two  governments. 

You  will  have  learned  before  this,  I  presume,  that  the  pres 
ent  Parliament  will  be  compelled  to  make  special  provision 
for  the  poor  over  and  above  the  regular  poor  rates,  the  number 
of  people  out  of  employ  and  destitute  being  so  numerous*  in 
England.  The  pressure  in  France  and  Prussia  is  also  getting 
intolerable  to  the  governments.  You  will  remark  a  disposition 
in  Europe  once  more  to  menace  us  with  foreign  interference. 

I  would  invite  your  special  attention  to  the  article  in  the 
Debats  of  the  24th,  which  is  attributed,  no  doubt  correctly,  to 
Chevalier;  also  to  the  Constitutionnel,  which  is  getting  very 
truculent  again.  These  and  Mr.  Gladstone's  recent  speech1 
and  the  article  in  the  London  Post  of  a  day  or  two  since,  which 

1The  speech  at  Newcastle  in  which  Gladstone  said  Jefferson  Davis  "had 
created  a  nation." 


488        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

is  here  presumed  to  have  been  ministerial,  justify  the  impres 
sion,  that  some  important  step  is  afoot,  which  bodes  our  gov- 
eminent  no  particular  good.  Yourg  yery 


P.S.  I  forgot  to  say,  that  the  English  press  have  been  re 
quested  by  the  government  to  say  nothing  of  the  Mexican 
contretemps. 


I  made  the  acquaintance  of  M.  Auguste  Laugel  on  my  first 
visit  to  Europe  in  1859,  and  was  glad  of  an  opportunity  of 
renewing  it  when  I  returned  in  an  official  character  in  the  fall 
of  1861. 

M.  Laugel  was  connected  by  marriage  with  one  of  the  most 
pronounced  antislavery  families  of  New  England,  and  we  had 
many  friends  in  common.  He  was  an  expert  in  many  of  the 
natural  sciences,  had  written  some  books  of  indisputable  merit, 
and  was  a  member  of  the  official  family,  as  private  secretary, 
of  the  Due  d'Aumale,  who  was  in  exile  at  Twickenham  when 
this  letter  was  written. 

Had  any  of  the  Orleans  family  come  again  to  the  throne  of 
France,  M.  Laugel  would  unquestionably  have  been  one  of  his 
most  confidential  councillors. 

From  the  foundation  of  the  Temps  newspaper  in  Paris  M. 
Laugel  was  the  editor  of  the  scientific  department,  under  the 
pseudonym  of  d'A.  Vernier;  he  was  also  an  active  contributor 
to  the  Revue  de  Geologie  and  the  Revue  des  Sciences  et  de 
I9 Industrie.  Among  his  writings  most  widely  appreciated  are 
"Les  fitats-Unis  pendant  la  Guerre"  (1865) ;  "L'Angleterre 
Politique  et  Social"  (1873) ;  "Lord  Palmerston  et  Lord  Bus- 
sell"  (1876),  etc. 


AUGUSTE  LAUGEL  TO  BIGELOW 

ORLEANS  HOUSE,  TWICKENHAM, 

May  22,  1862. 
My  dear  Mr.  Bigelow, 

I  have  received  your  note  and  will  try  to  find  you  in  town. 
Meanwhile,  I  send  you  a  card  which  will  help  you  to  spend 


ADMIRAL  FARRAGUT  COMES  TO  THE  FRONT     489 

next  Sunday  in  a  less  tedious  way  than  you  naturally  would 
through  a  London  Sabbath.  The  Duke  d'A.  has  had  yesterday 
an  Exhibition  of  all  his  fine  things,  pictures,  drawings,  manu 
script,  books,  etc.  etc.  for  the  Fine  Art  Club— but  as  the 
weather  was  very  bad,  and  as  some  people  could  not  come,  the 
house  will  be  open  again  next  Sunday,  from  2  to  7 ;  I  do  advise 
you  to  come  were  it  not  even  for  the  pleasure  I  shall  have  in 
seeing  you— but,  in  truth,  the  collections  are  most  beautiful. 
Just  a  morning  meeting  without  any  etiquette  or  dress. 
Give  my  best  regards  to  Mrs.  Bigelow  and  believe  me 

Yours  very  truly 


What  glorious  news  we  hear  from  America ! 

The  nature  of  the  news  here  referred  to  is  disclosed  in  the 
following  note  from  Mr.  Seward. 


SEWARD  TO  BIGELOW 

Private 

DEPAKTMENT  OF  STATE, 

WASHINGTON,  May  23,  1862. 
Sir: 

Your  note  of  the  9th  was  received.  It  is  believed  here  that 
the  virtual  opening  of  New  Orleans  and  other  ports  to  trade 
will  either  allay  the  discontent  existing  in  Europe,  or  at  least 
render  it  necessary  for  those  who  are  managing  it  for  sinister 
purposes  to  change  their  plans  of  operation. 
I  am,  Sir, 

Your  obedient  servant 


At  a  general  council  held  at  the  residence  of  General  Mc- 
Clellan  on  November  15,  an  expedition  already  planned  was 


490        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

first  mentioned  to  the  general.  He  objected  to  the  detachment 
of  a  sufficient  number  of  his  men  from  other  undertakings. 
The  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Mr.  Welles,  thereupon  proposed 
to  insure  the  capture  of  New  Orleans  by  the  navy.  He  pre 
sented  a  plan,  the  credit  of  which  must  belong  to  his  Assistant 
Secretary,  Captain  G.  V.  Fox,  asking  only  a  contingent  of 
10,000  men  with  which  to  hold  the  city,  and  out  of  which  Com 
mander  Porter,  who  was  present  at  the  council,  was  to  organ 
ize  a  mortar  flotilla  that  he  would  command  in  person. 

"The  original  proposition  of  the  Navy  Department, "  says 
Secretary  Welles,  "was  to  run  past  the  forts  and  capture 
the  city,  when,  the  fleet  being  above  and  communication  cut  off, 
the  lower  defences  must  fall."  Commander  Porter  concurred 
in  the  desirability  and  probable  success  of  the  naval  expedition 
which  the  department  suggested  and  outlined,  but  strongly 
advised  the  addition  of  a  powerful  mortar  flotilla,  which 
should  reduce  these  formidable  forts  by  a  bombardment  be 
fore  the  fleet  essayed  to  pass  them,  so  as  to  leave  no  enemy  or 
serious  obstruction  in  the  rear.  His  proposal  was  adopted. 

The  department  chose  Captain  David  G.  Farragut  to  lead 
the  expedition.  He  was  then  sixty  years  of  age  and  had  been 
forty-eight  years  in  the  service,  having  become  a  midshipman 
when  but  eleven. 


Though  born  in  Tennessee  and  twice  allied  by  marriage  with  Vir 
ginia  families,  his  heart  was  untouched  by  disloyalty.  He  was  residing 
at  Norfolk,  Virginia,  when  the  frenzy  of  secession  seized  the  Old  Do 
minion.  "On  the  morning/'  writes  his  son,  "when  it  was  announced 
that  Virginia  had  passed  the  ordinance  of  secession  ( April  18 ) ,  Farra 
gut  went  as  usual  to  the  rendezvous  previously  mentioned,  and  was  soon 
aware  by  the  reserved  manner  and  long  faces  of  those  about  him  that 
affairs  had  reached  a  climax.  He  expressed  himself  freely  as  not  satis 
fied  with  the  action  of  the  Convention,  and  believing  that  President 
Lincoln  was  fully  justified  in  calling  for  troops  after  the  seizure  of  the 
forts  and  arsenals.  He  was  impatiently  informed  that  a  person  of  his 
sentiments  'could  not  live  in  Norfolk/  to  which  he  calmly  replied, 
'Well,  then,  I  can  live  somewhere  else.'  Returning  home  immediately, 
with  the  feeling  that  the  time  for  prompt  action  had  arrived,  he  an 
nounced  to  his  wife  his  intention  of  '  sticking  to  the  flag, '  and  said  to 
her, '  This  act  of  mine  may  cause  years  of  separation  from  your  family ; 
so  you  must  decide  quickly  whether  you  will  go  North  or  remain  here. ' 
It  is  needless  to  say  that  her  decision  was  as  prompt  as  his  own,  to  go 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  NEW  ORLEANS      491 

with,  her  husband. "  .  .  .  About  a  month  after  Porter  went  to  New 
York  to  prepare  his  mortar  flotilla,  Captain  Farragut  was  called  to 
Washington  and  confidentially  informed  of  the  duty  he  was  expected 
to  undertake. 

By  the  middle  of  April  the  expedition  was  before  the  forts  below 
New  Orleans,  Farragut  with  seventeen  men-of-war  and  177  guns; 
Porter  with  a  mortar  flotilla  of  nineteen  schooners  and  six  armed 
steamships  for  guard  and  towing  service;  General  Butler  with  the 
army  contingent  of  six  thousand  men,  the  remainder  being  yet  de 
tained  at  Ship  Island  for  want  of  transports.  The  rebel  defences  were 
of  threefold  character :  First,  Forts  Jackson  and  St.  Philip  with  about 
115  guns,  fourteen  of  them  in  casemate;  second,  a  river  barrier,  one 
and  one-half  miles  below  the  forts,  consisting  of  log-rafts  and  dismasted 
schooners,  anchored  at  intervals  and  connected  by  strong  chains ;  third, 
an  improvised  fleet  of  sixteen  rebel  gunboats,  several  of  them  armed 
with  iron  prows,  and  one  of  them  (the  Manassas)  an  iron-plated  ram. 
Still  another  vessel  of  formidable  construction,  also  designed  for  iron 
plating,  but  in  default  of  which  her  sloping  sides  were  covered  with 
railroad  iron,  remained  unfinished;  she  was  brought  down  and 
anchored  half  a  mile  above  Fort  St.  Philip,  thus  adding  a  stationary 
battery  of  sixteen  guns  to  the  strength  of  the  upper  fort. 


For  five  days  Commander  Porter  bombarded  Fort  Jackson 
without  making  any  apparent  impression ;  and  on  the  fifth  day 
Farragut  decided  to  try  his  ships.  At  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning  of  April  24,  Farragut  commanding  the  flag-ship  Hart 
ford,  the  divisions  started  to  pass  the  forts. 


Perhaps  the  most  exciting  incident  of  the  passage  happened  to  the 
Hartford.  The  enemy  had  on  several  occasions  set  adrift  and  sent 
down  fire-rafts ;  but  the  efficient  fire  brigade,  with  boats,  grapnels,  and 
other  appliances  specially  organized  to  meet  them,  had  hitherto  suc- 

\  ceeded  in  towing  them  out  of  the  way,  to  points  where  they  would  be 
harmless.  It  happened  as  the  Hartford  was  passing  Fort  St.  Philip, 

'  one  of  these  fire-rafts  came  down,  not  merely  drifting  in  the  current, 
but  pushed  and  directed  by  a  rebel  tugboat.  The  Hartford,  swerving 
aside  to  avoid  the  encounter,  ran  aground ;  and  the  tug,  perceiving  the 
advantage,  boldly  pushed  the  blazing  raft  against  the  flag-ship.  In  an 
instant  the  flames  enveloped  the  whole  ship 's  side  and  flashed  aloft  into 
the  rigging.  It  was  a  critical  and  painful  moment  to  Farragut :  "My 
God ! "  he  exclaimed, ' '  is  it  to  end  in  this  way  ? ' '  But  caution  and  good 
discipline  triumphed.  Only  the  dry  paint  was  as  yet  ablaze,  and  a 
well-directed  stream  of  water  from  the  fire  apparatus  subdued  the 


492        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

mounting  flame.  Most  opportunely,  too,  the  ship's  engines  were  able 
to  back  her  from  her  great  peril,  and  she  continued  up  the  river, 
silencing  the  guns  of  Fort  St.  Philip  as  she  passed. 


With  the  destruction  of  the  ram  Manassas  at  dawn  the  en 
gagement  appears  to  have  closed. 

The  vessels  passed  up  the  river  and  came  temporarily  to  anchor  at 
quarantine  station,  six  miles  above  the  forts.  The  combat  had  lasted 
about  one  and  a  half  hours;  the  rebel  flotilla,  with  the  exception  of 
three  steamers,  was  destroyed;  the  Union  loss  was,  the  Varuna  sunk, 
considerable  miscellaneous  damage  to  other  ships,  and  a  total  of 
twenty-four  killed  and  eighty-six  wounded.  A  little  more  than  six 
weeks  from  the  day  when  the  great  naval  battle  between  the  Merrimac 
and  Monitor,  in  Hampton  Roads,  filled  the  world  with  the  new  fame  of 
ironclads,  Farragut's  victory  at  New  Orleans  revived  the  prestige  of 
wooden  ships  when  handled  with  courage  and  skill.1 


BIGELOW  TO  SEWAKD 

PAKIS,  May  29,  1862. 
Dear  Sir: 

During  a  brief  visit  to  London,  whence  I  have  just  returned, 
I  picked  up  some  gossip,  which  though  unworthy  of  the  official 
cachet,  may  have  body  enough  to  bear  a  voyage  across  the 
Atlantic. 

I  found  Eussell  of  the  Times  in  had  health,  though  not  con 
fined  to  his  house.  He  says  Delane  was  very  much  put  out 
with  him  for  leaving  America.  Mrs.  Eussell  said  he  dared  not 
stay  with  the  Army ;  that  he  was  afraid  of  being  assassinated. 
He  made  no  remark  of  that  kind  to  me.  He  is  engaged  in 
writing  up  his  notes  on  America  for  publication.  He  has  been 
repeatedly  heard  to  say  in  London,  that  ours  is  now  the  finest 
army  in  the  world.  He  is  under  the  impression  that  he  was  hit 
by  a  weapon  levelled  by  the  Secretary  of  War  at  General  Mc- 

1  See  Nicolay  and  Hay's  Life  of  Lincoln,  Vol.  V,  pp.  265,  266. 


CAMERON  STUDYING  GENEALOGY  493 

Clellan.  I  think  lie  feels  deeply  mortified  at  the  position  in 
which  the  order  of  the  Secretary  has  placed  him  in  England 
and  that  it  is  to  that,  more  than  to  anything  else,  that  his  im 
paired  health  is  attributable.  He  seemed  anxious  to  convince 
me  that  he  had  always  spoken  kindly  of  you,  and  I  of  course 
took  no  pains  to  discourage  his  efforts. 

Mr.  Cameron1  is  searching  for  the  proofs  of  his  descent 
from  Lochiel  and  with  considerable  success.  I  saw  a  note 
from  McDonald  of  the  Times,  who  has  written  a  book  about 
the  clans  of  Scotland  and  who  states,  after  a  brief  interview, 
that  the  family  likeness  is  obvious.  Poor  Lochiel !  A  gentle 
man  asked  me  one  day  rather  abruptly,  if  I  knew  any  stain 
upon  the  character  of  Mr.  Cameron.  I  told  him  that  I  had  not 
the  pleasure  of  any  personal  acquaintance  with  that  gentleman 
nor  had  I  any  personal  knowledge  of  any  stain  upon  his  char 
acter.  He  said  that  question  was  put  to  him  the  day  before  at 
dinner  by  "Bear"  Ellice.  The  purpose  of  the  inquiry  is  suffi 
ciently  apparent  to  those  who  know  the  functions  which  Ellice 
discharges  in  London  society.  I  fear  Mr.  Ellice 's  inquiries 
did  not  always  elicit  as  favorable  answers  as  mine,  for  I  learn 
that  Mr.  Cameron  has  already  abandoned  London  and  his 
genealogical  researches  and  is  today  expected  in  Paris. 

The  feeling  of  the  people  of  England  at  present  is  anything 
but  cordial  towards  us.  They  will  never  forgive  us  for  the 
ungenerous  treatment  we  received  at  their  hands  last  year. 
Bright  thinks  that  probably  a  majority  of  those  possessing 
political  franchises  desire  to  see  a  separation  of  our  Union, 
but  that  numerically  a  majority  of  the  nation  are  for  the 
Union.  The  entente,  between  the  aristocracy  of  England  and 
of  the  Cotton  States  seems  to  be  cordial  and  inexpugnable.  I 
have  heard  of  but  one  English  nobleman  who  seems  to  ques 
tion  the  supremacy  of  King  Cotton,  and  that  one  is  the  most 
renowned  of  the  class. 

Lord  Brougham  has  been  spending  several  days  in  Paris  to 
have  his  teeth  subjected  to  their  annual  review  by  Dr.  Evans. 

1  Mr.  Cameron  succeeded  James  Buchanan  as  Senator  from  Pennsylvania  in 
1845.  In  1856  he  was  returned  to  the  Senate  as  a  Republican.  He  was  ap 
pointed  Secretary  of  War  quite  reluctantly  by  President  Lincoln  on  March  4, 
1861,  and  on  the  llth  of  January  following  was  cheerfully  appointed  United 
States  Minister  to  Russia,  which  post  he  resigned  the  following  year.  While 
pursuing  his  genealogical  researches  in  Scotland  he  was  presumed  to  be  on 
his  way  to  the  seat  of  his  mission  at  St.  Petersburg. 


494        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

On  his  arrival  at  the  Doctor's  office  early  one  morning,  the 
porter  ushered  him  into  a  room  where  a  portrait  of  Washing 
ton  was  suspended.  The  Doctor's  secretary  came  in  imme 
diately  after  and  saw  his  Lordship  standing  with  his  hat  off. 
The  secretary  prayed  him  to  cover  his  head  as  the  room  was 
cold.  "Non!  non!"  replied  the  old  man,  who  was  looking  at 
the  portrait,  "Dans  la  presence  d'un  tel  homme  on  reste  tou- 
jours  decouverte." 

That  is  about  the  first  really  respectful  and  pleasant  thing 
that  has  emanated  from  any  British  Statesman  of  the  domi 
nant  party  since  our  troubles  began,  that  I  have  heard  of. 

I  spent  one  evening  with  Cobden.  He  anticipates  a  financial 
crisis  in  America,  which  nothing  can  remedy,  of  course,  but  his 
favorite  panacea :  free  trade.  He  complained  of  the  ignorance, 
inaptitude  and  indifference  to  the  lessons  of  history  and 
previous  experiences  of  England,  exhibited  by  the  framers  of 
our  revenue  laws,  and  asked  how  it  was  possible  for  us  to  sur 
mount  the  enormous  difficulties  in  our  path,  if  we  committed 
such  delicate  work  to  such  incompetent  hands.  Neither  ad 
mitting  nor  denying  the  correctness  of  his  facts,  I  replied  by 
asking  him,  if  in  the  conduct  of  this  war,  sprung  upon  us  under 
such  terrible  disadvantages,  we  had  shown  any  want  of  prac 
tical  skill  in  adapting  means  to  ends.  He  admitted  that  we 
had  not,  but  on  the  contrary  had  astonished  the  world.  Well, 
said  I,  when  the  country  is  safe  from  armed  enemies  and  the 
public  credit  becomes  our  vital  question,  as  no  doubt  it  will, 
can  you  doubt  that  statesmen  competent  to  grapple  with  that 
question  will  be  found  and  armed  with  the  requisite  means  to 
secure  that  also?  When  a  man  is  in  danger  of  going  over 
Niagara  Falls,  he  does  not  stop  to  bail  out  his  boat  for  fear  of 
getting  his  feet  wet.  I  also  told  him,  that  as  soon  as  peace  was 
re-established  we  could  borrow  all  the  money  we  wanted,  in 
England,  at  easy  rates,  so  that  our  credit  depended  only  and 
entirely  upon  our  putting  down  the  rebellion  effectually. 

I  spent  part  of  last  Sunday  at  Orleans  House,  where  I  was 
favored  with  considerable  talk  about  American  affairs  by  the 
Due  d'Aumale.  The  only  part  of  our  conversation  of  special 
interest  related  to  Mexico  and  to  General  McClellan.  He 
thought  the  Emperor  had  made  a  blunder  in  his  Mexican  ex 
pedition  and  was  trying  with  all  his  might  to  extricate  himself 
from  it,— that  his  trip  to  Mexico  is  at  war  with  the  policy  and 


THE  DUG  D'AUMALE  AND  McCLELLAN        495 

traditions  of  France1  and  can  never  be  made  acceptable  to  the 
French  people  and  that  if  the  Emperor  prosecuted  it  alone,  it 
was  because  he  was  ashamed  to  take  backward  steps. 

Though  the  Duke  has  better  opportunities  than  I  of  knowing 
the  disposition  and  purposes  of  the  Emperor  and  though  you 
have  better  than  either  of  us,  I  am  quite  persuaded  that  he  is 
mistaken ;  that  the  Emperor  has  no  thought  of  leaving  Mexico, 
but  on  the  contrary  is  well  content  to  have  the  field  to  himself 
and  means  to  cultivate  it  for  the  benefit  of  France  "as  he 
understands  it."  He  quiets  England  and  Spain  by  giving 
them  an  ally  to  become  territorially  interested  in  resisting  our 
supposed  pretensions  to  universal  dominion  over  the  Western 
Hemisphere  and  in  protecting  their  colonies  from  the  caprices 
and  passions  of  the  enfant  terrible,  who  in  past  years  has  sub 
jected  both  to  many  mortifications.  He  also  counts  with  a 
good  right  upon  the  prayers  of  the  Jesuits  for  his  success, 
which  will  serve  him  in  Eome,  where  he  just  now  needs  help, 
if  not  in  Mexico.  In  addition  to  all  which  I  shall  be  surprised 
if  he  has  not  his  eye  upon  some  mines,  from  which  to  replenish 
his  wasted  exchequer. 

Apropos  of  this  subject  allow  me  to  direct  your  attention  to 
the  following  article  in  the  last  Saturday  Review  which  re 
flects  very  accurately  the  tone  and  temper  of  English  "opin 
ion  as  I  found  it  in  society,  in  reference  to  the  Mexican 
question. 

Knowing  how  deeply  the  Duke  must  be  interested  in  the 
question  of  McClellan's  fitness  for  his  present  position,  about 
which  the  government  of  the  U.  S.  seems  to  be  so  strangely 
divided,  and  that  he  had  peculiar  and  exclusive  sources  of  in 
formation,  I  asked  what  impression  he  had  received  upon  the 
subject.  He  replied,  that  certainly  McClellan  was  not  a  man 
of  genius,  but  we  had  no  right  to  require  any  one  to  have 
genius ;  that  he  was  not  capable  of  those  grand  combinations 
which  the  first  Napoleon  made  in  his  Italian  campaigns,  but 
that  he  was  a  master  of  the  science  of  his  profession,  that  he 
was  prudent,  wary,  and  safe  and  as  yet  had  not  made  a  single 
blunder.  This  he  thought  was  evidence  of  great  merit.  The 

1 1  did  not  remind  him  of  the  naval  expedition  commanded  by  his  brother, 
the  Prince  de  Joinville,  against  Mexico  and  the  bombardment  of  Vera  Cruz, 
one  of  the  excuses  for  which,  given  by  Guizot,  then  Minister  of  Foreign  Af 
fairs,  was  to  check  the  spread  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  in  America. 


496        RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Duke  seemed  entirely  content  to  have  his  nephews  under  such 
a  leader. 

I  forgot  to  state  that  in  a  conversation  with  Mr.  Bright,  he 
stated  that  we  will  do  well  to  waste  no  more  money  upon 
fortifying  the  lakes.  That  nothing  is  more  improbable  than 
any  aggressions  upon  us,  especially  since  the  recent  demon 
strations  of  strength  which  we  have  made. 

Yours,  &c. 


The  expedition  of  a  minister  from  the  U.  S.  to  Eome  just  at 
the  time  when  France  is  withdrawing  hers,  is  the  subject  of 
some  speculation  here  in  private  circles. 


EICHAED  COBDEN  TO  BIGELOW 

Private 

ATHENAEUM  CLUB,  LONDON, 

15  June,  1862. 
My  dear  Sir: 

I  am  glad  to  find  that  my  allusion  to  your  past  financial  ex 
ample  was  pleasant  to  you.  I  might  have  gone  farther  and 
shown  that  the  arts  of  peace  which  have  been  developed  by  the 
capital  which  you  saved  from  government  expenditure  have  in 
fact  furnished  the  arms  by  which  the  Federal  government  are 
now  winning  their  successes,— for,  it  is  to  the  superiority  of 
the  weapons  produced  by  the  mechanics  of  Connecticut  more 
than  to  any  superiority  of  courage  or  generalship  in  the 
armies  that  you  are  indebted  for  Federal  triumphs.— 

I  am  sorry  to  see  that  your  cruisers  are  capturing  our  ships 
laden  with  arms  &c.  for  the  South,  on  the  high  seas.  Perhaps 
they  are  justified  by  the  dictum  of  Lord  Stowell,  but  I  wish- 
to  avoid  disputes— that  your  government  would  limit  their 
belligerent  operations  to  the  waters  of  the  South — I  mean  to 
within  three  miles  of  the  shore.  Surely  your  cruisers  might, 
with  proper  activity,  secure  their  prize  money  within  three 


COBDEN  AND  THE  AMERICAN  MINISTER      497 

leagues  of  the  coast,  which  gives  them  undisputed  sovereignty. 
What  I  mean  by  this  is  to  avoid  small  irritating  questions  of 
dispute.  The  great  bone  of  contention,  cotton,  is  quite  enough 
without  provoking  small  issues.— In  speaking  to  Mr.  Adams 
one  day,  I  was  surprised  to  find  that  he  had  been  complaining 
to  Lord  Eussell  of  the  open  and  notorious  manner  in  which 
cargoes  of  arms  and  ammunition  were  made  up  here  for  the 
South.— He  seemed  to  view  it  as  a  grievance  that  our  govern 
ment  did  not  prevent  the  shipment  of  arms  &c.  to  Nassau, 
which  were  obviously  intended  to  pass  to  the  Southern  ports. 
I  told  Mr.  Adams  that  it  was  no  part  of  the  duty  of  a  govern 
ment  to  exercise  any  such  surveillance  over  the  operations  of 
Commerce,  and  I  sent  him  an  extract  from  President  Pierce 's 
message  in  1855  in  which,  apropos  of  the  Crimean  War,  this 
doctrine  is  clearly  and  ably  laid  down.— I  suspect  that  Mr. 

Seward  had  forgotten  all  this  when  he  instructed  Mr.  A » 

to  complain  to  the  English  government. 

I  send  you  a  copy  of  my  letter  to  Mr.  Ashworth  upon  inter 
national  law.— I  have  said  all  I  can,  and  quite  as  much  as  you 
deserve,  in  favor  of  your  past  course  in  this  connection. 

Is  Mr.  Dayton  not  coming  to  see  the  Exhibition?  If  he 
visits  England  I  should  like  to  see  him. 

With  my  kind  remembrance  to  Mrs.  Bigelow,  believe  me 

Yours  very  truly 


My  dear  Friend: 


WEED  TO  BIGELOW 

ALBANY,  June  20  [1862]. 


The  Eebellion  which  three  weeks  ago  seemed  on  its  last  legs, 
now  gathers  strength  for  a  desperate,  but  an,  I  hope,  expiring 
struggle.  The  elements  have  hindered  and  delayed  the  armies 
in  Virginia  and  the  West. 

Union  men  are  emerging  as  fast  as  assurances  of  Protection 
encourage  the  growth  of  tender  plants.  The  ultra  Abolition 
agitation  strengthens  Davis  &  Co.  Their  "one  idea"  People 


498        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

cannot  see  that  what  they  seek  will  come  all  the  surer  and 
sooner  by  working  with  the  Government. 

I  went  to  Auburn  with  Seward,  who  is  doing  the  work  of  half 
a  dozen  Secretaries  and,  in  the  main,  doing  it  wisely.  The 
President  is  a  truly  wise  man.  I  have  not  been  in  Washington. 

I  went  to  New  York  to  see  Lord  Lyons,  who  goes  home  with 
his  head  and  heart  (he  has  both)  in  the  right  place. 

I  think  of  going  to  North  Carolina  to  see  Stanley,  who  is  the 
right  man,  and  only  needs  opportunities  for  consultation  with 
those  in  whose  judgment  he  can  confide. 

The  confiscation  of  the  slaves  of  Eebels,  and  the  slavery 
emancipation  &  freedom  forever,  in  the  Territories  are  steps 
in  the  right  direction,  and  needful.  .  .  . 

Truly  yours 


SEWAED  TO  BIGELOW 

Unofficial 

DEPARTMENT  OF  STATE, 

WASHINGTON,  June  25,  1862. 
JOHN  BIGELOW,  ESQ.: 

My  dear  Sir: 

The  London  Times  has  succeeded  in  procuring  itself  to  be 
universally  regarded  as  an  enemy  to  the  United  States;  en 
gaged  in  urging  upon  them  the  calamities  of  a  foreign  war  in 
the  crisis  of  a  domestic  insurrection  sufficiently  dangerous. 
The  Secretary  of  War  supposes  that  it  is  his  duty  not  to  give 
the  London  Times  the  weight  which  it  would  derive  from  pro 
tecting,  supporting  and  cherishing  its  agent  (the  then  Times 
correspondent,  Sir  William  H.  Eussell).  The  American  peo 
ple  do  not  dissent  from  the  Secretary's  opinion.  They  are 
being  wrought  up  by  the  European  press  to  the  point  of  meet 
ing  a  European  invasion.  It  seems  to  them  as  if  such  an  in 
vasion  gains  favor  in  Europe  just  in  proportion  that  excuses 
for  it  are  removed. 

This  explanation  is  for  yourself  alone.    The  Secretary  of 


THE  RUSSIAN  FLAG  IN  NEW  YORK  HARBOR     499 

War  does  not  propose  to  have  any  discussion  about  it,  and  cer 
tainly  I  can  afford  to  engage  in  none. 

Gen.  Cameron's  vindication  by  the  President  would  have 
come  somewhat  earlier  if  he  had  not  assumed  to  defend  him 
self  against  Congress  and  in  doing  so  hurled  back  accusations 
against  them. 

Your  defence  of  our  financial  policy  was  right.  It  stands 
upon  necessities.  Mr.  Bright  should  have  shown  you  how  we 
could  have  gone  through  the  war  with  a  peace  revenue  and 
fiscal  system. 

I  do  not  write  or  even  talk  just  now  about  Mexican  affairs. 
I  think  it  prudent  to  watch  and  wait.  Between  you  and  myself 
alone,  1  have  a  belief  that  the  European  State,  whichever  one 
it  may  be,  that  commits  itself  to  intervention  anywhere  in 
North  America,  will  sooner  or  later  fetch  up  in  the  arms  of  a 
native  of  an  oriental  country  not  especially  distinguished  for 
amiability  of  manners  or  temper.1 

Our  sending  a  Minister  to  Eome  was  just  as  meaningless  as 
our  consenting  to  M.  Mercier's  going  to  Eichmond.  We  ap 
pointed  Eufus  King  Minister,  sixteen  months  ago.  He  de 
clined.  We  appointed  Mr.  Eandall  a  year  ago.  He  waited 
until  he  got  the  Wisconsin  forces  into  the  field  and  then  went 
to  Eome  to  save  the  appointment. 

Propositions  and  debates  about  mediation  and  recognition 
do  not  tend  to  make  our  people  amiable.  If  the  debates  are 

1  As  doubts  have  been  expressed  in  some  quarters  whether  Mr.  Seward  ever 
had  any  expectation  of  aid  from  Russia  and  whether  reports  to  that  effect 
were  not  "historic  myths,"  I  have  marked  the  paragraph  in  the  preceding  letter 
which  I  believed  then  to  be,  and  still  believe  to  have  been,  a  sufficient  warrant 
for  the  inference  that  the  Secretary  of  State  had  an  understanding  with  the 
Russian  Government.  What  he  wrote  certainly  implies  more  than  could  be 
inferred  from  a  simple  display  of  the  flag  of  the  Czar  in  the  harbor  of  New 
York. 

Shortly  after  my  return  from  France  in  1867,  I  spent  a  few  days  in  Wash 
ington,  during  which  time  I  had  frequent  interviews  with  Mr.  Seward  and 
occasionally  met  at  his  house  M.  Bodisco,  the  Russian  Minister  at  Washing 
ton.  The  purchase  of  Alaska  from  Russia  had  just  been  consummated.  Of 
course  neither  Mr.  Seward  nor  M.  Bodisco  said  distinctly  to  me  that  that 
purchase  was  made  purely  and  simply  as  a  gracious  recognition  on  the  part 
of  the  Washington  Government  of  the  attitude  of  the  Czar  toward  the  United 
States  in  1862,  but  I  doubt  if  there  was  any  member  of  either  house  of  Con 
gress  who  supposed  the  Government  then  had  any  other  motive  in  the  pur 
chase  of  Alaska  than  to  recognize  its  obligations  to  the  Czar,  or  that  as 
territory  it  had  any  value  except  as  ridding  us  of  an  alien  neighbor. 

The  fact  that  "there  is,  as  I  am  told,  no  record  of  such  an  understanding  in 


500        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

kept  np  abroad,  we  shall  have  a  navy  that  will  be  worthy  of  a 
great  maritime  power.  It  might  perhaps  be  well  if  it  were 
known  in  Europe  that  we  are  no  longer  alarmed  ~by  demon 
strations  of  interference. 

I  am,  my  dear  sir,  very  truly  yours 


SEWAED  TO  BIGELOW 

Confidential 

DEPARTMENT  OF  STATE, 

WASHINGTON,  June  26,  1862. 
JOHN  BIGELOW,  ESQ. 
Sir: 

Your  despatch  No.  22,  dated  June  10th,  has  been  received. 

The  expedition  of  Jackson  was,  as  you  have  already  learned, 

a  mere  raid  producing  no  results.    The  military  situation  of 

the  insurgents  grows  worse  every  day.     The  Army  of  the 

Potomac  is  doing  its  work  carefully,  and  I  hope  surely. 

I  send  you  a.  note  which  I  received  from  Mr.  Evarts  yester 
day  in  relation  to  Mr.  Heine.  That  gentleman  called  upon  me, 
and,  as  was  very  natural,  I  found  him  deeply  impressed  with 

the  government  departments/'  is  not  surprising.  Flirtations  between  nation 
alities,  as  between  the  sexes,  are  not  apt  to  be  proclaimed  from  the  housetops, 
nor  even  made  matters  of  record. 

In  further  confirmation  of  my  impression  it  may  be  pertinent  to  quote  the 
following  paragraph  from  a  letter  written  by  Mr.  Adams  to  Mr.  Seward  on 
November  29  of  the  year  1861,  after  a  conference  with  Earl  Russell : 

"I  ought  to  add  that  in  going  into  the  anteroom  previous  to  the  conference 
I  met  there  Baron  Brunnow,  the  Russian  Minister,  who  seized  the  occasion  to 
express  his  great  regret  at  the  misunderstanding  which  is  taking  place  and  his 
earnest  offer  of  any  services  on  the  part  of  himself  or  his  Government  that 
might  have  the  effect  to  restore  friendly  relations  between  the  two  countries." 
The  terrors  of  the  Russian  bear  for  rhetorical  purposes  were  not  the  inven 
tion  of  Mr.  Seward.  Almost  three  centuries  before  Shakespeare  had  made 
them  classical.  On  the  reappearance  of  Banquo's  ghost  at  Macbeth's  banquet 
he  exclaims : 

"What  man  dare,  I  dare : 
Approach  thou  like  the  rugged  Russian  bear, 
The  arm'd  rhinoceros,  or  the  Hyrcan  tiger, — 
Take  any  shape  but  that,  and  my  firm  nerves 
Shall  never  tremble." 


M.  FOULD  AND  HIS  KINSMAN  HEINE  501 

the  conviction  that  the  disunionists  in  the  South  would  not 
relinquish  their  resistance  to  the  Government,  and  would  ruin 
and  destroy  everything  there  if  the  Government  should  still 
persist  in  its  measures  to  restore  the  Union.  He  is  in  some 
way  connected  with  the  Banks  in  New  Orleans  and  he  seems 
desirous  to  induce  a  conviction  on  my  part  that  they  ought  to 
be  allowed  to  pay  Confederate  money  to  their  depositors.  I 
rejected  the  idea  decisively,  and  I  said  what  seemed  to  me 
proper  to  convince  him  that  the  Government  would  succeed  in 
a  few  months  in  restoring  the  authority  of  the  Union,  and  that 
it  would  not  be  diverted  from  that  policy  by  any  demonstra 
tions  or  combinations  that  might  be  made  in  Europe. 

His  connection  with  M.  Fould  gives  him  some  importance. 
I  have  thought  therefore  that  it  would  be  well  to  have  Mr. 
Dayton  understand  him  and  his  relations.  I  think  it  unwise, 
however,  to  make  his  visit  here  the  subject  of  an  official  dis 
patch  to  Mr.  Dayton.  Will  you  informally  show  Mr.  Dayton 
this  dispatch  with  Mr.  Evarts '  note  I 

I  am,  Sir,  &c. 


WILLIAM  M.  EVAETS  TO  F.  W.  SEWARD,  ASSISTANT 
SECRETARY  OF  STATE 

NEW  YORK, 

June  24,  1862. 
My  dear  Mr.  Seward, 

I  have  to-day  given  a  letter  to  Mr.  Michael  Heine,  a  New  Orleans 
gentleman,  to  the  Sec.  of  State,  which  will  probably  be  presented  to 
morrow. 

Mr.  Heine  is  a  connection  of  M.  Fould,  the  Paris  banker  and  Min 
ister  of  Finance,  and  is  on  his  way  to  Europe,  where  his  relations 
with  M.  Fould  will  bring  him  into  intimate  and  confidential  com 
munication  with  that  Minister. 

I  have  not  mentioned  this  in  my  open  letter  of  introduction  but 
write  this  to  you  that  Gov.  Seward  may  be  sure  to  know  of  it,  before 
Mr.  Heine  presents  himself. 

Yours  very  truly 


502        BETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 
BIGELOW  TO  SEWABD 

PARIS,  June  27,  1862. 
HON.  WILLIAM  H.  SEWABD, 

Dear  Sir: 

I  am  in  receipt  of  some  intelligence  this  morning  of  almost 
too  horrible  a  character  to  be  credited,  but  which  comes 
through  such  sources  as  to  leave  me  in  no  doubt  as  to  my  duty 
in  reporting  it  to  you. 

Mr.  Duncan,  a  lawyer  of  New  Orleans,  formerly  from  Ken 
tucky  and  one  who  went  reluctantly  into  the  Eebellion,  is  now 
in  Paris.  In  the  course  of  his  conversation  yesterday  at  dinner 
with  a  friend  of  mine  and  a  prominent  journalist  of  this  city, 
he  said  that  there  was  a  plan  on  foot  to  have  a  simultaneous 
assassination  of  all  Unionists  in  the  Slave  States.  As  a  pre 
liminary  to  this  atrocity,  the  Unionists  were  to  have  their 
suspicions  disarmed  as  much  as  possible  by  professions  of 
loyalty  on  the  part  of  the  rebels.  They  expected  that  an  ap 
parently  cordial  acquiescence  in  the  federal  rule  would  soon 
lead  to  a  reduction  in  the  federal  garrison  and  meantime  that 
the  conspirators  might  gradually  get  the  confidence  of  the 
Unionists  and  possess  themselves  as  far  as  possible  of  such 
information  as  would  be  necessary  for  the  success  of  their 
scheme. 

Such  a  massacre  as  this  would  naturally  be  the  thought  and 
first  resource  of  a  certain  class  of  desperadoes,  but  that  such  a 
design  can  be  shared  by  any  formidable  class  of  people  in  the 
United  States  is  something  which  I  find  it  difficult  to  imagine, 
notwithstanding  the  surprising  revelations  of  depravity  which 
slavery  has  made  during  the  past  year. 

If,  as  the  papers  report,  the  Recorder  of  Memphis  has 
caused  the  arrest  of  a  citizen  for  speaking  to  a  Federal  soldier, 
it  is  pretty  evident  that  there  are  prominent  men  in  that 
quarter  who  have  ulterior  designs  that  should  render  them 
suspected. 

I  am  informed  that  Mr.  Slidell  has  expressed  his  conviction 
that  the  rebellion  is  a  failure  and  that  he  wishes  a  settlement 


AMERICAN  SECURITIES  GOING  HOME          503 

upon  a  Union  basis,  if  nothing  better  for  the  rebels  is  prac 
ticable  :  I  have  no  means  of  knowing  this  positively,  but  that 
feeling  is  freely  expressed  here  by  the  Secessionists,  who  visit 
SlidelPs  family  and  who  leave  that  impression  of  SlidelPs 
views. 

Securities  of  all  kinds  are  going  to  the  United  States  now  in 
large  amounts  from  France.  I  do  not  see  how  the  effect  of  the 
present  tendency  can  be  otherwise  than  disastrous  to  the 
financial  credit  of  the  country,  unless  something  is  done 
promptly  to  avert  it.  There  is  a  vast  amount  of  American 
securities  of  one  kind  and  another  held  here  and,  between  the 
apparently  high  prices  on  the  one  hand  and  the  financial  crisis 
which  the  advance  in  Exchange  threatens  on  the  other,  the 
French,  who  are  easily  frightened  about  their  investments,  are 
all  rushing  to  their  bankers  ready  to  sell  at  almost  any  price. 
If  the  tax  bill  were  passed  and  we  had  copies  of  it  in  hand  here 
it  might  have  a  reassuring  effect  for  a  time,  unless  people  con 
cluded  that  if  the  taxes  were  to  be  paid  in  government  paper 
they  would  yield  far  less  than  was  expected  or  than  is  neces 
sary  for  the  credit  of  the  government.  No  banker  in  Europe 
can  be  made  to  put  confidence  in  our  financial  policy  so  long  as 
paper  promises  are  made  a  substitute  for  gold,  by  law. 

If  we  were  a  weak  power  like  Mexico  or  any  of  the  South 
American  Republics  they  would  rely  upon  their  governments 
to  enforce  payments,  but  the  United  States  are  too  strong  for 
that  sort  of  treatment.  Our  very  strength  in  this  case  preju 
dices  our  credit. 

The  weather  has  improved  and  the-  prospects  of  the  harvest 
have  improved  proportionally. 

I  have  just  procured  the  conclusion  of  the  debate  in  the 
Corps  Legislatif  yesterday  on  the  Mexican  question.  It  is 
probably  the  only  full  report  that  will  go  to  the  U.  S.,  as  the 
conclusion  is  only  just  off  the  press.  I  would  suggest  that  it 
be  put  at  the  disposal  of  the  press  for  translation,  for  it  is  no 
doubt  the  most  important  debate  which  has  occurred  in  that 
body  since  the  Eoman  question  was  before  it.  You  will  find  it 
in  the  Moniteur  of  this  date. 

Yours  very  truly, 


504        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

WEED  TO  BIGELOW 

NEW  YOKK,  July  5  [1862]. 
Dear  Bigelow: 

"Bull  Bun,"  without  the  dishonor!    "Bull  Run,"  because 
we  close  another  campaign  without  Richmond.1 

We  have  no  "Reserve"  army  and  I  fear  cannot  even  get 
recruits.    It  is  a  wretched  business,  and  somebody  is  to  blame. 
I  am  sick,  but 

Truly  yours 


WEED  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  July  12  [1862]. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

Mr.  Seward  showed  me  your  letter  to-day.  I  hope  when  the 
Emperor  hears  from  Charleston  and  Richmond  he  will  not 
change  his  policy. 

We  are  in  peril  from  many  points  and  many  sources.  There 
are  military  and  political  dangers.  Recent  disasters  bring 
your  "Jim  Brooks V  and  "Bill  Duer's"  to  the  surface, 
croaking. 

We  are  a  little  too  weak  for  moving  at  Richmond,  Charles 
ton,  Savannah,  and  Mobile.  We  are  expecting  the  capture  of 
Vicksburg  hourly. 

M.  Loubat  dined  at  Seward 's  with  me  yesterday  and  in  the 
evening  we  rode  out  to  see  the  President,  who  is  anxious  and 
nervous. 

McClellan  has  81,000  effective  troops,  Polk  40,000,.and  Burn- 
side  16,000.  There  are  40,000  off  on  sick  leave,  most  of  whom 
ought  to  return. 

Recruiting  drags.  If  we  had  50,000  fresh  troops  things 
might  be  retrieved. 

1  This  letter  was  written  under  the  depressing  influence  of  the  defeat  of 
McClellan  in  the  battle  of  Gaines's  Mill,  fought  on  the  27th  of  June.  For  par 
ticulars  see  James  Ford  Rhodes's  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol,  IY?  p.  40, 


SEWARD'S  OPINION  OF  ASSASSINATION      505 

This  city  is  a  vast  hospital  in  which  more  than  12,000  sick 
and  wounded  languish. 

Bowen  has  turned  the  Police  Force  into  a  recruiting  rendez 
vous,  and  is  to  be  a  brigadier. 

Truly  yours 


SEWAED  TO  BIGELOW 

Unofficial 

DEPARTMENT  OF  STATE, 

WASHINGTON,  July  15,  1862. 
Sir: 

Your  letter  of  June  27th  has  been  received. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  from  a  period  anterior  to  the  break 
ing  out  of  the  insurrection,  plots  and  conspiracies  for  purposes 
of  assassination  have  been  frequently  formed  and  organized. 
And  it  is  not  unlikely  that  such  an  one  as  has  been  reported  to 
you  is  now  in  agitation  among  the  insurgents.  If  it  be  so,  it 
need  furnish  no  ground  for  anxiety.  Assassination  is  not  an 
American  practice  or  habit,  and  one  so  vicious  and  so  despe 
rate  cannot  be  engrafted  into  our  political  system. 

This  conviction  of  mine  has  steadily  gained  strength  since 
the  Civil  War  began.  Every  day's  experience  confirms  it. 
The  President,  during  the  heated  season,  occupies  a  country 
house  near  the  Soldiers'  Home,  two  or  three  miles  from  the 
city.  He  goes  to  and  from  that  place  on  horseback,  night 
and  morning,  unguarded.  I  go  there  unattended  at  all  hours, 
by  daylight  and  moonlight,  by  starlight  and  without  any 
light. 

The  anxiety  of  European  Capitalists  about  their  invest 
ments  here  need  not  disturb  you.  We  are  deficient  in  cotton 
for  export,  but  abound  in  gold.  If  they  want  to  exchange  such 
of  our  bonds  as  they  hold,  and  are  willing  to  pay  us  high 
values  for  gold  to  realize,  it  certainly  disturbs  nobody  here, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  enriches  the  country.  In  the  last  six 
months  we  have  received  twelve  millions  of  gold  from  Cali 
fornia,  and  shipped  over  twenty  millions  to  Europe.  All  our 


506        RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

old  debt  is  payable,  and  will  be  paid,  in  gold.  The  interest  on 
all  our  new  debt  is  payable  in  gold.  And  as  it  will  not  fall  due 
until  after  the  end  of  the  war,  the  principal  as  well  as  the  inter 
est  will  then  be  paid,  and  paid  in  gold.  I  think  it  is  thus  rea 
sonably  certain  that  our  national  debt  will  all  be  paid  in  gold, 
while  the  principal  of  no  other  national  debt  in  the  world  will 
ever  be  paid  at  all  in  any  currency. 

What  France  and  what  Europe  now  need  is  to  send  us,  not 
our  own  stocks  to  redeem,  although  they  are  not  unwelcome, 
nor  yet  merchandise,  although  we  buy  all  of  it  we  need,  but 
emigrants  to  supply  the  demand  for  purposes  of  war  and 
tillage.  But  while  all  these  things  will  be  understood  by  and 
by,  nobody  in  Europe  is  prepared  to  understand  them  now. 

I  am,  Sir,  &c. 


The  future  was  destined  to  lend  a  melancholy  interest  to  the 
optimism  of  the  preceding  letter  from  the  Secretary  of  State 
in  reply  to  a  warning  I  had  Sjent  him  of  risks  he  daily  incurred 
of  assassination.  In  little  less  than  three  years  from  the  date 
of  my  warning,  the  President  was  assassinated;  Mr.  Seward 
and  his  son  barely  escaped  the  assassin's  knife,  and  both  were 
actually  maimed  for  life.  The  Secretary  was  perhaps  correct 
in  saying  that  assassination  was  not  an  American  habit  when 
he  wrote,  but  three  Presidents  have  since  been  the  victims  of 
assassins,  and  Mr.  Lincoln's  predecessor,  James  Buchanan,  is 
reported  and  believed  to  have  surrendered  his  own  views  of 
his  official  duty,  while  President,  through  fear  of  assassination. 

In  1858  a  plot  to  slay  the  French  Emperor  by  the  use  of 
bombs  manufactured  in  England  had  been  organized  by  a  band 
of  Italian  refugees  in  London.  The  French  Government  for 
mally  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  bodies  of  assassins 
abused  their  right  of  asylum  in  England. 

In  a  debate  in  the  House  of  Commons  on  a  t '  Conspiracy  to 
Murder "  bill,  introduced  in  consequence,  and  which  overthrew 
Lord  Palmerston's  administration,  Mr.  Gladstone  said: 

"As  one  who  has  perhaps  too  often  made  it  his  business  to 
call  attention  to  the  failings  of  his  countrymen, "  if  national 
honor  was  not  henceforth  to  be  a  shadow  and  a  name,  it  was 
the  paramount,  absolute  and  imperative  duty  of  her  Majesty's 


THE   HABIT  OF  ASSASSINATION  507 

ministers  to  protest  against  the  imputation  upon  Englishmen 
of  favor  for  assassination,  "a  plant  which  is  congenial  neither 
to  our  soil  nor  to  the  climate  in  which  we  live. ' n 

And  yet  twice  at  least  during  her  reign  arrests  were  made 
for  attempts  upon  the  life  of  Queen  Victoria. 

The  optimism  of  Gladstone,  as  well  as  of  Seward,  is  cal 
culated  to  remind  any  reader  versed  in  French  history  of  an 
incident  which  occurred  about  a  century  earlier  and  which  we 
have  upon  the  authority  of  Malesherbes : 

A  merchant  of  Lyons,  journeying  toward  home  in  the  latter 
days  of  1756,  slept  in  a  tavern  where  he  heard,  through  a  crack 
in  the  wall  or  partition,  talk  of  a  plot  to  assassinate  the  King, 
Louis  XV.  Horror-stricken,  he  returned  at  once  to  Paris, 
sought  one  of  the  ministers  of  the  King,  and  told  him  what  he 
had  overheard.  The  Minister  thanked  him,  but  treated  his 
report  with  indifference,  taking  no  further  notice  of  it. 

Not  many  days  elapsed  before  the  King  was  actually 
stabbed— on  the  15th  of  January,  1757— by  Damiens,  though 
not  fatally. 

The  careless  or  culpable  Minister  then  bethought  him  of  the 
Lyons  merchant.  Fearing  that  the  report  of  what  had  oc 
curred  might  leak  out  and  he  be  made  responsible  for  his 
neglect  to  provide  against  it,  he  issued  a  lettre  de  cachet  and 
had  the  unfortunate  merchant  arrested  and  confined  in  the 
Bastille. 

The  14th  of  July,  1789— a  day  memorable  in  history  for  the 
number  of  crimes  it  revealed— opened  the  dungeon  where  had 
languished  for  thirty-two  years  this  unhappy  victim  of  ar 
bitrary  power. 

When  Damiens  expiated  his  crime  he  cried,  "I  believed  I 
was  doing  an  act  worthy  of  heaven,  and  I  intended  to  speak  of 
it  to  all  the  priests  of  the  palace. ' ' 

Seward,  like  the  French  Minister,  paid  no  attention  to  the 
warning  he  had  received.  Like  Louis,  he  was  stabbed,  also  by 
a  fanatic,  and  happily,  like  Louis,  not  fatally.  The  difference 
between  my  experience  and  that  of  the  Lyons  merchant  was  as 
striking  as  their  resemblances.  My  warning  was  given  a  cen 
tury  after  my  country  had  emancipated  itself  from  arbitrary 
foreign  rule,  but  on  the  eve  of  its  deliverance  from  a  more 

"John  Morley,  Life  of  Gladstone  (New  York). 


508        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

arbitrary  domestic  tyranny;  and  it  was  the  warned,  not  the 
warner,  that  was  punished  for  disregarding  the  warning. 

Since  writing  the  above  another  incident  has  been  revealed 
which  lends  an  intenser  and  very  unexpected  interest  to  the 
tragedies  of  April  14, 1865.  Among  the  letters  of  the  late  John 
Hay  recently  printed  is  one  written  June  17, 1867,  when  he  was 
on  his  way  as  Secretary  of  Legation  to  act  as  charge  d'affaires 
ad  interim  after  the  retirement  of  Mr.  Motley,  June  14,  1867, 
at  Vienna.  In  this  letter  he  says : 

Rode  to  Carthage  in  the  same  seat  with  R L [Robert  Lin 
coln],  a  second  cousin  of  the  late  President.  He  is  forty-one  years 
old,  looks  much  older.  The  same  eyes  and  hair  the  President  had— 
the  same  tall  stature  and  shambling  gait,  less  exaggerated,  a  rather 
rough,  farmer-looking  man.  Drinks  hard,  chews  ravenously.  He 
says  the  family  has  about  run  out.  "We  are  not  a  very  marrying 
set."  He  is  dying  of  consumption,  he  said  very  coolly.  There  was 
something  startling  in  the  resemblance  of  the  straight  thicket  of  hair, 
and  the  gray,  cavernous  eyes  framed  in  black  brows  and  lashes,  both 
features  of  the  great  dead  man.  Knew  my  father  since  long  years. 

Brought  a  load  of  wheat  to  G and  M in  1842  with  ox  teams; 

got  $90  in  gold  for  it.  Told  me  that  in  1860  he  had  talked  to 
"Abe"  about  assassination.  Abe  said:  "I  never  injured  anybody. 
No  one  is  going  to  hurt  me."  He  says  he  was  invited  by  Abe  to  go  on 
to  Washington  at  the  time  of  the  inauguration,  but  declined,  thinking 
it  dangerous— a  naivete  of  statement  I  thought  would  have  been  im 
possible  out  of  the  West. 


BIGELOW  TO  HAEGEEAVES 

PARIS,  July  17, 1862. 
My-  dear  Mr.  Ear greaves: 

I  believe  I  have  expressed  to  you  my  apprehension  from 
time  to  time  that  our  war  in  America  might  end  too  soon. 
Since  McClellan's  check  at  Eichmond,  that  apprehension  has 
been  sensibly  diminished.  I  think  now  it  is  certain  or  tolerably 
certain  that  the  war  will  last  long  enough  to  accomplish  one 
great  result,  without  which  it  would  have  ended  too  soon  how 
soever  long  it  lasted.  You  can  guess  what  that  result  is.  I 


WAS  McCLELLAN'S  FAILURE  PROVIDENTIAL?    509 

think  nearly  enough  life  has  been  sacrificed  now,  to  cure  the 
fastidiousness  which  has  hitherto  prevented  our  government's 
dispensing  guns  and  uniforms  to  colored  men.  When  they 
come  to  fill  up  the  ranks  of  an  army  composed  like  ours  of  the 
very  flower  of  our  citizens  and  which  has  been  decimated  by 
balls  and  disease  they  will  not  be  likely  to  stand  much  upon 
color.  The  policy  and  economy  of  sacrificing  husbands, 
fathers  and  brothers  for  the  defence  of  the  rights  of  colored 
men,  who  are  not  thought  good  enough  to  fight  for  themselves, 
must  by  this  time,  I  think,  be  pretty  thoroughly  exploded.  If 
so,  I  can  see  the  finger  of  Providence  in  the  recent  disaster  at 
Eichmond,  for  had  McClellan  succeeded  there,  the  chances  are 
ten  to  one  that  the  negrophobia  would  have  got  the  upper  hand 
in  the  country  and  the  struggle  through  which  we  are  passing 
would  have  resulted  like  your  revolution  of  1660,  in  a  restora 
tion  in  every  way  worse  than  the  Govt.  against  which  you 
rebelled.  All  that  is  wanting  now  to  bring  our  troubles  to  a 
propitious  close  is  a  healthy  tone  of  public  opinion  throughout 
the  North  on  the  subject  of  slavery;  to  be  rid  of  the  expecta 
tion  that  the  South  is  to  return  to  the  Union  with  its  dispro 
portionate  political  power,  which,  like  the  corresponding 
delusion  at  the  South  in  regard  to  foreign  intervention,  pre 
vents  a  large  class  of  influential  persons  on  both  sides  from 
seeing  things  as  they  are  or  must  be.  The  democratic  party  in 
the  United  States  have  been  so  long  accustomed  to  regard 
slavery  as  the  Egyptians  used  to  regard  the  Ibis,  as  a  sacred 
bird,  that  it  is  as  difficult  to  make  them  attack  the  former  as  it 
would  have  been  to  make  an  Egyptian  shoot  the  latter.  But  I 
think  that  delusion  has  been  nearly  cured  and  I  shall  be  sur 
prised  if  General  Butler  wastes  much  more  time  in  writing 
letters  to  Washington  to  know  what  to  do  with  Eun-away 
negroes. 

I  was  delighted  with  the  recent  passages  at  arms  between 
Mr.  Cobden  and  Ld.  Palmerston.  I  wished  very  much  to  be 
near  you  to  talk  about  it.  I  do  not  remember  any  instance  of 
the  premier  being  so  successfully  bearded  as  in  the  China 
speech.  I  hope  it  will  improve  his  manners,  his  morals  I  fear 
are  fixed.  His  wanton  speech  about  Butler's  letter  has  pro 
duced  a  very  bad  feeling  in  the  United  States,  and  with  every 
allowance  for  my  feelings  as  an  American  I  cannot  but  think 
it  was  a  very  indecorous  speech  to  make  from  his  place  in 


510        BETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Parliament.  However  it  did  good,  for  it  makes  our  people 
only  the  more  self-dependent  and  the  more  determined.  It 
hastens  the  time  too  in  my  judgment  when  the  people  of  Eng 
land  will  be  disposed  to  confide  their  vast  interests  to  some 
prime  minister  of  more  prudence  and  principle.  I  expect  to 
pass  through  London  next  week  on  my  way  to  Liverpool  to 
meet  Mrs.  Bigelow's  sister  who  is  coming  over,  when  I  hope  to 
see  you  &  yours,  meantime  I  remain  as  ever, 

Your  sincere  friend 


BIGELOW  TO  SEWAED 

Confidential 

PAEIS,  July  17, 1862. 
Dear  Sir: 

Your  dispatch  marked  "private"  enclosing  a  message  for 
Mr.  Dayton  was  duly  received  and  communicated  to  him. 

Your  dispatch  of  the  25th  June,  also  marked  "private," 
came  duly  to  hand. 

I  am  satisfied  that  the  persistent  attacks  of  the  London 
Times  upon  our  government  have  for  their  immediate  ob 
ject  to  drain  our  country  of  gold  and  they  have  thus  far  had  a 
tendency  to  encourage  such  drainage.  They  have  created 
quite  a  panic  among  the  holders  of  American  securities  in 
Europe,  who  are  encouraged  of  course  by  all  the  bankers  to 
lose  no  time  in  turning  them  into  gold.  The  house  of  Peabody 
has  been  doing  an  enormous  business  during  the  past  year  in 
this  way  and  I  am  told  that  Gov.  Morgan  had  sent  from  New 
York  to  that  firm  over  a  million  of  dollars  in  gold  more  than 
two  months  ago.  They  are  in  correspondence  with  the  banking 
house  of  Vandenbroek  Brothers  in  this  city,  a  favorite  resort 
of  Secessionists,  through  whom  they  are  scouring  the  French 
market.  Vandenbroek  Brothers  have  private  dispatches  from 
Peabody  &  Co.  upon  the  arrival  of  every  Steamer  and  if  there 
is  anything  out  of  which  a  panic  can  be  made,  they  are  sure  to 
improve  it.  When  Banks  was  driven  across  the  Potomac,  they 
had  the  news  here  exclusively,  nor  did  it  appear  in  any  French 


THE  TIMES  AND  AMERICAN  SECURITIES      511 

paper  till  confirmed  by  the  next  Steamer.  They  said  nothing 
of  the  fact  that  he  had  but  4,000  men,  but  allowed  the  impres 
sion  to  be  made,  that  a  corps  d'armee  had  been  disgracefully 
repulsed.  So  they  only,  in  this  city,  so  far  as  I  can  learn,  had 
the  news  of  McClelland  retreat,  brought  by  the  Steamer  of  the 
2nd  instant.  It  was  represented  in  their  dispatch  as  an  utter 
defeat.  A  more  extended  dispatch  in  the  same  sense  appeared 
in  the  London  Times  with  an  article  designed  to  leave  the  im 
pression  that  his  army  was  cut  to  pieces  and  his  siege  guns  all 
taken.  Mr.  Peabody  the  same  evening  at  dinner  entertained 
his  friends,  who  inquired  if  the  facts  could  be  as  bad  as  repre 
sented,  by  informing  them  that  according  to  his  private  ad 
vices,  they  were  a  great  deal  worse. 

The  bankers  would  of  course  like  to  have  all  the  securities  in 
the  world  bought  and  sold  every  week  and  it  is  not  strange 
therefore  that  they  as  a  class  do  not  do  much  to  discourage  the 
efforts  made  to  discredit  us  abroad.  The  Times  acts  in  the 
interest  of  the  government  and  of  the  country  in  doing  all  it 
can  to  bring  gold  to  England  and  France  in  anticipation  of  the 
demand  which  is  sure  to  arise  for  it  this  fall  to  purchase  grain 
with.  It  is  an  ingenious  mode— in  humble  imitation  of  our 
legal  tender  legislation— to  compel  the  holders  of  American 
securities  to  buy  and  import  the  gold  now  which  is  sure  to  be 
wanted,  and  which  when  wanted  might  otherwise  impose  the 
burden  of  getting  it  upon  backs  less  patient  or  less  strong  than 
those  that  bear  it  now.  If  the  crops  had  been  better  in  Europe 
than  they  are  now  known  to  be,  the  British  government  would 
not  have  done  as  much  as  it  has,  either  in  parliament  or 
through  the  press,  to  ruin  our  character  as  a  nation.  It  has 
succeeded  in  spreading  the  alarm  through  France.  As  I  have 
already  informed  you,  the  leading  bankers  of  Paris  are  sencj- 
ing  home  all  kinds  of  securities,  National,  State,  Municipal 
and  railways,  to  sell  and  all  the  news  at  home  and  all  the 
agencies  abroad  seem  to  conspire  against  all  efforts  to  restore 
or  create  confidence. 

Vandenbroek  Brothers  have  had  an  advertisement  in  the 
papers  for  a  week  or  two  past,  announcing  that  they  were 
purchasers  of  American  securities.  They  buy  I  believe  for 
Peabody  &  Co. 

I  saw  M.  Selliere  yesterday,  the  large  army  furnisher  of  this 
city.  He  told  me  that  our  new  tariff  had  killed  his  business 


512        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

with  the  U.  S.  He  "had  ceased  shipping  there  altogether.  I 
told  him,  that  "it  was  not  the  policy  of  the  U.  S.  at  present  so 
much  to  cultivate  importations  as  to  maintain  the  national 
existence  and  in  looking  after  that,  we  were,  just  now,  less  able 
to  consider  the  convenience  and  interests  of  other  nations  than 
I  hoped  we  would  soon  be.  Meantime,  -as  we  had  full  employ 
ment  for  our  funds,  we  saw  a  reduction  of  foreign  importa 
tions  without  regret. 

There  seems  to  be  a  general  impression  here,  that  England 
and  France  will  now  take  measures  to  stop  the  war.  Such  you 
will  see  by  a  note  received  from  Mr.  Lucas,  the  editor  of  the 
London  Star,  is  Mr.  Cobden's  opinion.  Mr.  Lucas'  remarks 
upon  the  subject  I  think  are  conclusive.  It  does  not  seem  to 
me  that  England  could  engage  in  hostilities  with  us  now  even 
aided  by  France  and— supposing  they  encounter  no  embarrass 
ments  from  their  European  neighbors— without  a  revolution 
in  both  countries. 

The  papers  this  morning  announce  the  withdrawal  of  the 
Orleans  princes  from  our  army  and  their  return  to  England. 
Without  knowing  anything  of  the  reasons  for  this  step  except 
such  as  are  most  obvious,  the  news  gave  me  great  satisfaction. 
They  were  no  longer  of  any  use  there  to  us,  while  they  did 
much  more  than  an  American  would  be  disposed  to  credit  to 
embitter  the  court  and  administration  here  against  us. 

I  fear  the  Orleanists  are  contemplating  some  step  which 
renders  the  presence  of  the  princes  necessary  here.  If  so,  I 
regret  it,  for  I  feel  persuaded  it  must  fail,  notwithstanding  the 
extraordinary  development  of  Orleanism  in  France  during  the 
last  six  months,  which  is  incontestable.  I  hope  the  withdrawal 
of  the  princes  will  not  dimmish  the  friendly  interest  which 
certain  leading  journals  have  'taken  in  our  contest  since  their 
fortunes  were  partially  identified  with  ours. 

I  have  remarked  with  pleasure  a  modification  of  the  tone  of 
the  government  press  of  this  city  during  the  past  week.  The 
Patrie,  hitherto  the  most  venomous  advocate  of  intervention, 
has  become  quite  moderate  and  has  omitted  entirely  to  draw 
from  the  late  disasters  at  Eichmond  the  moral  which  its  past 
course  justified  us  in  expecting  from  it. 

The  Constitutionnel  also  has  modified  its  course  materially. 
You  have  probably  better  means  than  I  of  understanding  the 
cause  of  this  change,  for  I  must  admit  that  hitherto  both  these 


TOO  MANY  SPELL  NEGRO  WITH  TWO  0'S      513 

journals  have  proved  inaccessible  to  any  influences  which  I 
control. 

It  is  always  profitable  to  search  reverently  for  the  finger  of 
Providence  in  all  the  important  events  which  make  up  the 
lives  of  nations  as  well  as  of  individuals.  I  think  I  have  dis 
covered  it  in  the  late  repulse  before  Eichmond.  As  a  people 
we  were  not  yet  prepared  to  make  a  proper  use  of  victory  and 
peace.  There  are  too  many  left  among  us  who  spell  negro 
with  two  "g's"— one  of  your  tests  I  am  told  of  a  presidential 
candidate  and  a  good  one.1  When  every  household  in  the  free 
States  has  been  called  upon  to  mourn  a  father,  or  a  brother, 
or  a  son  sacrificed  in  this  war ;  when  the  flower  of  our  country 
have  been  decimated  by  disease  and  hostile  arms,  it  is  to  be 
presumed  that  some  at  least  of  the  fastidiousness  about  the 
colour  of  our  soldiers  will  disappear  and  with  it  the  peculiar 
sanctity  with  which  negro  property,  like  kings,  is  still  hedged 
about  among  northern  people. 

A  few  more  checks  like  that  at  Eichmond  will  throw  a  doubt 
over  the  wisdom  of  that  policy,  which  would  take  the  young 
men  from  our  universities  and  counting  houses  to  fight  for  the 
rights  of  a  race  who  are  thought  unworthy  of  sharing  in  the 
struggle.  Till  our  people  can  become  reconciled  to  use  such 
weapons  as  Providence  has  so  obviously  placed  in  our  hands, 
I  do  not  believe  we  can  expect  a  victorious  or  honorable  peace. 
The  prospect  of  a  uniform  and  soldier's  wages  would  bring  to 
our  camps  thousands  of  men,  who  would  make  useful  workmen 
and  good  soldiers.  British  officers  in  the  West  Indies  have 
told  me  that  they  estimate  their  colored  soldiers  very  highly. 
Until  we  have  sufficiently  conquered  our  prejudices  to  profit 
by  these  resources  we  may  naturally  expect  that  the  necessity 
of  resorting  to  them  will  increase. 

So  long  as  there  is  any  hope  or  fear  of  the  Southern  States 
coming  back  into  the  Union  with  their  ancient  political  power 
and  cotton  terrorism,  so  long  will  there  be  a  large  class  ready 
to  combine  against  any  government  whatever  which  proposes 

1  This  is  an  allusion  to  a  remark  Seward  is  said  to  have  made  in  reply  to 
Douglas,  who  had  been  indulging  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  in  a  tirade  against 
"nigger- worshippers."  After  the  debate  and  walking  home  with  him  from  the 
Capitol,  Mr.  Seward,  having  in  view  Douglas's  notorious  expectation  of  a 
nomination  from  the  Democratic  party  for  the  Presidency,  said,  "Douglas,  no 
man  will  ever  be  President  of  the  United  States  who  spells  'negro'  with  two 


514        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

any  measure  having  a  tendency  in  any  way  to  circumscribe  the 
power  of  slaveholders  and  so  long  will  this  war  be  ineffectual 
for  the  objects  for  which  it  is  waged.  We  can  never  be  a 
united  North  until  all  possibility  of  such  a  restoration  of  a 
slavery  dynasty  is  destroyed.  Nor  do  I  think  it  is  the  will  of 
Providence  that  this  war  should  end  until  the  impossibility  of 
such  a  restoration  is  placed  beyond  a  peradventure. 

Pray  excuse  me  for  troubling  you  with  this  deb  or  dement. 
There  are  times  when  every  man's  tongue  is  loosed  and  it 
would  be  strange  if  even  the  dumb  did  not  speak. 

July  18. 

I  beg  to  direct  your  attention  to  a  brief  article  in  the  Consti- 
tutionnel  of  this  morning  for  its  reference  to  the  retirement  of 
the  Orleans  princes.  This  article  and  the  language  of  the 
Times  are  sure  to  produce  very  bad  feeling  here  and  I  think  it 
highly  important  that  some  explanation  of  the  step  be  fur 
nished,  if  possible,  which  will  save  our  government  from  any 
responsibility  for  their  retirement.  The  friendship  of  their 
friends,  I  need  not  say  to  you,  is  very  desirable  to  us  here. 

I  also  invite  your  attention  to  the  following  paragraph  in 
the  2nd  Paris  letter  which  appears  in  the  Independence  Beige 
of  the  17th  and  to  the  extract  which  follows  from  the  Madrid 
correspondence  of  the  Independence  of  same  date. 

Yours  very  truly 


SLIDELL  TO  J.  P.  BENJAMIN 

PARIS,  25th  July,  1862. 


Sir: 


On  Thursday,  the  10th  inst.,  we  received  the  first  intelligence  of  the 
battles  of  the  26  and  27  of  June  and  the  "strategical  movements"  of 
McClellan  across  the  Chickahominy  and  towards  James  River.  On 
the  strength  of  these  news  and  of  your  despatch  No.  3  (which  with 
numbers  1,  2  and  4  had  been  delivered  by  Mr.  de  Leon) ,  I  was  about  to 
call  on  Count  de  Persigny,  when  I  received  a  message  from  that  gentle- 


CONSPIRACY  HATCHING  AT  THE    TUILERIES     515 

man,  who  had  recently  returned  after  an  absence  of  some  weeks  in 
England,  saying  that  he  desired  to  see  me.  I  of  course  lost  no  time  in 
complying  with  his  request.  I  communicated  to  him  confidentially  the 
substance  of  my  new  instructions  and  he  advised  me  to  proceed  to 
Vichy  where  the  Emperor  would  be  on  Saturday,  but  he  thought  would 
be  much  occupied  for  a  day  or  two  in  receiving  the  authorities,  etc. 
The  Count  gave  me  a  very  warm  letter  to  General  Fleury,  who  is  a 
great  favorite  of  the  Emperor  and  constantly  accompanies  him,  urging 
him  to  procure  an  audience  for  me.  I  went  accordingly  to  Vichy  on 
Tuesday,  arriving  there  in  the  evening.  The  next  morning  I  sent  a 
note  to  General  Fleury  enclosing  that  of  M.  de  Persigny  soliciting  his 
good  offices  to  procure  me  "une  audience  officieuse"  with  the  Em 
peror.  I  very  soon  received  a  reply  saying  that  the  Emperor  would 
receive  me  at  2  o  'clock. 

You  will  find  herewith  full  details  of  my  interview  marked  No.  1. 


No.  1 

On  Wednesday  morning,  16th  July,  at  9  o'clock,  I  enclosed  to  Gen 
eral  Fleury,  Aide  de  camp  and  Premier  iScuyer  of  the  Emperor,  a 
letter  from  Count  de  Persigny,  and  asked  him  to  procure  me  the  honor 
of  an  official  audience  with  the  Emperor.  Before  12  o'clock  I  received 
from  M.  Fleury  a  note  stating  that  the  Emperor  would  receive  me  at 
2  o'clock.  The  Emperor  received  me  with  great  kindness  and  after 
saying  that  he  was  very  happy  to  see  me  and  regretted  that  circum 
stances  had  prevented  his  sooner  doing  so,  invited  me  to  be  seated. 
He  commenced  the  conversation  by  referring  to  the  news  contained 
in  the  evening  papers  of  the  previous  day  of  the  defeat  of  the  Federal 
armies  before  Richmond,  which  appeared  to  give  him  much  satisfac 
tion.  He  spoke  of  Lincoln's  call  for  three  hundred  thousand  addi 
tional  troops  as  evidence  of  his  conviction  of  the  desperate  character 
of  the  struggle  in  which  he  had  been  engaged  and  of  the  great 
losses  which  the  Federal  forces  had  sustained.  That  although  it 
was  unquestionably  for  the  interest  of  France,  that  the  United 
States  should  be  a  powerful  and  united  people  to  act  as  a  "eontre- 
poids"  to  the  maritime  power  of  England,  yet  his  sympathies  had 
always  been  with  the  South,  whose  people  are  struggling  for  the 
principle  of  self-government,  of  which  he  was  a  firm  and  consistent 
advocate,  that  he  had  from  the  first  seen  the  true  character  of  the 
contest  and  considered  the  re-establishment  of  the  Union  impossible 
and  final  separation  a  mere  question  of  time.  That  the  difficulty  was 
to  find  the  way  to  give  effect  to  his  sympathies,  that  he  had  always 
desired  to  preserve  the  most  friendly  relations  with  England  and  that 


516        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

in  so  grave  a  matter  he  had  not  been  willing  to  act  without  her  co 
operation,  that  he  had  several  times  intimated  his  wish  for  action  in 
our  behalf,  but  had  met  with  no  favorable  response,  and  that  besides, 
England  had  a  deeper  interest  in  the  question  than  France;  that  she 
wished  him  ' '  to  draw  the  chestnuts  from  the  fire  for  her  benefit. ' '  He 
asked  me  to  give  my  views  of  the  state  of  affairs  and  of  what  could  be 
done  to  bring  the  war  to  a  close.  The  conversation  had  thus  far  been 
in  French  with  occasional  remarks  from  me;  but  as  I  knew  that  the 
Emperor  spoke  English  well  and  fluently  and  was  said  not  to  dislike 
having  an  opportunity  to  converse  in  our  language  I  said  that  if  it 
would  not  be  disagreeable  to  him,  I  would  prefer  speaking  English, 
as  I  could  better  express  myself  in  my  own  tongue.  He  assented  and 
during  the  remainder  of  the  interview  the  conversation  was  in  English. 
He  enquired  the  amount  of  our  army.  I  estimated  the  number  of  men 
now  under  arms  at  about  350,000,  although  at  certain  previous  periods, 
before  we  had  abandoned  the  impossible  idea  of  defending  all  the  points 
of  our  immense  coast  and  frontier,  the  number  had  probably  been 
nearer  500,000 ;  but  since  we  had  adopted  the  policy  of  concentrating 
our  forces,  350,000  men  were,  I  thought,  as  many  as  we  could  advanta 
geously  employ.  That  our  difficulty  was  not  to  find  men,  of  them  we 
had  and  always  would  have  more  than  enough,  but  that  what  we 
wanted  were  arms,  powder  and  clothing.  I  explained  the  composition 
and  character  of  our  army,  that  with  us  every  man  was  a  soldier,  that 
very  many  of  the  elite  of  our  country  were  serving  in  the  ranks ;  spoke 
of  the  devotion  and  enthusiasm  of  our  women;  that  our  men  were 
badly  clothed  and  fed,  most  of  them  with  inferior  arms  and  all  insuf 
ficiently  and  irregularly  paid,  but  submitted  patiently  to  all  the  pri 
vations.  That  on  the  contrary  our  enemies  were  admirably  equipped 
and  armed,  as  a  general  rule  profusely  fed,  having  many  luxuries  in 
abundance,  such  as  tea  and  coffee  of  which  our  troops  were  entirely 
deprived;  but  that  the  very  large  majority  were  mercenaries,  who 
served  for  pay  and  food,  not  being  able  to  find  employment  and  wages. 
The  Emperor  expressed  his  great  surprise  at  our  troops  not  having 
coffee,  which  he  said  was  considered  essential  to  the  health  of  the  sol 
diers.  That  probably  one  half  of  the  privates  were  foreigners,  princi 
pally  Germans  and  Irish,  while  our  troops  were  almost  exclusively 
born  on  our  soil.  That  this  difference  made  them  much  more  than  a 
match  for  their  enemies  when  they  met  with  equal  numbers,  but  that 
this  advantage  was  more  than  compensated  by  the  greater  moral  value 
of  those  whom  we  lost,  carrying  mourning  into  every  Southern  fam 
ily,  while  no  interest  was  felt  at  the  North  for  the  mercenaries  who 
were  fighting  their  battles,  so  long  as  they  could  supply  their  places 
by  new  levies. 


CONSPIRACY  HATCHING  AT  THE   TUILERIES     517 

This  gave  me  an  opportunity  of  saying  about  Mexican  affairs  sub 
stantially  that  as  the  Lincoln  Government  was  the  ally  and  protector 
of  his  enemy  Juarez,  we  could  have  no  objection  to  make  common  cause 
with  him  against  the  common  enemy. 

I  asked  him  if  he  had  seen  Count  de  Persigny  since  his  return  from 
England,  or  if  the  Count  (to  whom  I  had  confidentially  communicated 
the  substance  of  your  despatch  No.  3)  had  written  to  him  about  our 
affairs.  He  said  that  he  had  neither  seen  nor  heard  from  the  Count. 
I  then  stated  to  the  Emperor  what  I  had  been  instructed  to  propose. 
It  did  not  seem  disagreeable.  He  said,  how  am  I  to  get  the  cotton  ?  I 
replied,  that  of  course  depends  on  your  Majesty;  he  will  soon  have  a 
fleet  in  the  neighborhood  of  our  coast,  strong  enough  to  keep  it  clear 
of  every  Federal  cruiser. 

I  gave  him  in  a  few  words  a  description  of  the  American  marine ; 
some  second  class  steamers  constructed  for  war  purposes  and  a  large 
number  of  merchant  vessels  hastily  purchased  and  fitted  up  for  the 
blockade  and  transport  service.  I  said  that  the  Gloire,  the  Garonne  or 
the  Normandie  could  pass  the  fortifications  of  New  York  and  Boston 
and  hold  those  towns  at  their  mercy,  or  could  enter  the  Chesapeake, 
destroy  all  the  vessels  there  and  Fortress  Monroe  by  bombardment. 

He  agreed  with  me  in  this.  I  expressed  my  regret  at  having 
heard  that  some  of  his  first  class  steamers  were  armed  en  flute  and 
asked  if  this  armament  could  not  be  completed  at  Martinique  and 
Guadeloupe,  and  suggested  that  if  not,  guns  could  be  sent  there  for  the 
purpose.  He  appeared  to  be  pleased  with  the  suggestion. 

He  then  spoke  of  recognition,  saying  that  simple  recognition  would 
be  of  no  value,  and  as  to  mediation  that  would  be  refused  by  the 
North.  I  replied  that  as  to  mediation,  I  agreed  with  him,  that  if 
offered,  it  would  be  refused  by  the  North  but  would  be  accepted  by  us, 
but  that  such  refusal  and  acceptance  would  be  of  vast  advantage  to 
our  cause  and  enlist  the  sympathies  of  the  civilized  world  in  our  favor 
and  afford  sufficient  reason  for  more  potent  intervention.  But 
we  did  not  ask  for  mediation,  all  we  asked  for  was  recognition,  that 
there  was  a  large  majority  in  the  Northern  States  in  favor  of  peace 
and  separation,  but  that  a  reign  of  terror  existed  which  for  the  present 
stifled  all  expression  of  such  opinions,  that  the  Congressional  elections 
were  approaching  and  that  recognition  would  give  the  peace  party 
courage  to  organize  and  perhaps  place  them  in  the  majority.  He 
said  that  he  was  pleased  to  see  that  there  had  been  a  great  peace  meet 
ing  in  New  York.  I  said  that  recognition  would  at  once  bring  out  many 
similar  demonstrations.  I  then  said  that  although  we  did  not  place 
ourselves  on  that  ground,  the  interests  of  humanity  might  be  urged  as 


518        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

calling  on  Europe  and  especially  on  him  who  exercised  so  potent  an 
influence  over  the  destinies  of  the  world  to  put  an  end  to  the  strife, 
which  was  not  only  devastating  the  South  and  exhausting  the  North 
but  paralyzed  the  industry  and  commerce  of  Europe.  He  replied, 
what  you  say  is  true,  but  the  policy  of  nations  is  controlled  by  their 
interests  and  not  by  their  sentiments,  and  ought  to  be  so.  I  replied, 
that  I  fully  admitted  his  proposition,  but  that  the  interests  to  be  con 
sulted  should  not  be  those  of  the  hour,  that  England  seemed  to  have 
abdicated  the  great  part  which  she  had  been  accustomed  to  play  in  the 
affairs  of  the  world,  and  adopted  a  tortuous,  selfish  and  time  serving 
policy,  which  had  only  served  to  make  all  nations  either  her  bitter 
enemies  or  at  least  fair  weather  friends.  That  we,  at  first,  had  been 
well  disposed  towards  England,  but  that  having  for  selfish  ulterior  pur 
poses,  to  revive  for  her  advantage  the  old  exploded  principles  of  a 
blockade,  and  to  secure  the  monopoly  of  cotton  for  her  Indian  colonies, 
given  a  false  interpretation  to  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  we  should  never 
hereafter  consider  her  our  friend.  The  Emperor  remarked,  I  have 
already  told  you  what  I  thought  of  the  blockade,  and  as  to  the  culture 
of  cotton  in  India  supplanting  yours,  I  consider  the  idea  entirely 
chimerical.  If  you  do  not  give  it  to  us  we  can  not  find  it  elsewhere. 
I  then  said,  your  Majesty  has  now  an  opportunity  of  securing  a  faith 
ful  ally,  bound  to  you  not  only  by  the  ties  of  gratitude,  but  by  those 
more  reliable  of  a  common  interest  and  congenial  habits.  He  said,  yes, 
you  have  many  families  of  French  descent  in  Louisiana  who  yet  pre 
serve  their  habits  and  language.  I  replied  that  he  was  right,  and  that 
I  could  give  him  an  instance  in  my  own  family  where  French  was 
habitually  spoken.  He  asked  me  whether  we  anticipated  no  difficulty 
from  our  slaves.  I  replied  that  they  had  never  been  more  quiet  and 
more  respectful  and  that  no  better  evidence  could  be  given  of  their 
being  contented  and  happy.  This  was  the  only  allusion  made  to  slav 
ery  during  the  interview. 

The  Emperor  asked  me  if  I  expected  that  England  would  agree  to 
co-operate  with  him  in  our  recognition.  I  replied  that  he  of  course 
must  have  much  better  means  of  information  than  I,  but  that  our 
friends  in  England  were  more  hopeful  than  they  ever  had  been  before, 
and  that  our  Commissioner  at  London,  for  the  first  time  since  his  ar 
rival,  wrote  encouragingly.  That  the  motion  of  Mr.  Lindsay  recom 
mending  recognition  would  be  brought  up  on  Friday,  and  that 
probably  the  debate  would  bring  out  Lord  Palmerston  with  a  declara 
tion  of  his  purposes.  He  asked  how  Cobden  was  disposed.  I  said 
that  he  was  unfriendly  to  us,  but  not  so  much  so  as  Bright.  That  it 
was  conceded  on  all  hands  that  an  immense  majority  of  the  House  of 
Commons  was  in  our  favor,  but  that  Lord  Derby  was  not  prepared  to 
take  office,  and  nothing  would  be  done  that  would  cause  Lord  Palmers- 
ton  to  resign. 


CONSPIRACY  HATCHING  AT  THE  TUILERIES     519 

While  I  was  advocating  recognition,  the  Emperor,  with  a  very  sig 
nificant  smile,  said,  it  is  very  singular  that  while  you  ask  absolute  rec 
ognition,  Mr.  Dayton  is  calling  upon  me  to  retract  my  qualified 
recognition  of  you  as  belligerents.  I  replied,  that  such  a  demand  was 
but  another  evidence  of  the  insolence  of  the  Washington  Government. 

The  Emperor  asked  me,  if  France  and  England  intervene,  on  what 
terms  can  a  peace  be  made  1  The  question  of  boundaries  is  a  most  dif 
ficult  one,  what  will  you  do  with  the  border  States?  You  will  not  be 
willing  to  accept  what  the  North,  even  if  she  submits  to  separation, 
will  accord.  I  replied  that  the  question  appeared  indeed  to  be  difficult 
but  it  seemed  to  be  susceptible  of  an  easy  solution  and  one  which,  we 
would  willingly  receive.  In  all  the  States  where  the  people  had  in  full 
conventions  voted  for  separation,  there  could  be  no  difficulty,  that  in 
Kentucky,  Missouri  and  Maryland,  the  question  whether  they  would 
join  our  confederacy,  form  a  separate  one  for  themselves  or  remain 
with  the  United  States  should  be  submitted  to  the  popular  vote  and 
that  I  had  no  fear  of  the  result,  that  such  had  been  the  Emperor's 
policy  in  Italy  and  the  whole  world  approved  of  it.  That  the  Chesa 
peake,  Potomac  and  Ohio  were  natural  and  indispensable  boundaries 
which  could  not  be  relinquished.  He  regretted  he  had  no  map  at  Vichy 
that  we  might  trace  the  line. 

I  should  have  mentioned  that  when  speaking  of  the  cotton  subsidy, 
I  told  the  Emperor  that  the  proposition  was  made  exclusively  to 
France,  my  colleague  at  London  not  being  aware  of  my  authority  to 
make  it. 

I  said  to  the  Emperor  that  in  deciding  upon  the  course  he  was  to 
pursue,  he  might  assume  two  fixed  points  of  departure.  First,  that  re 
construction  on  any  terms  was  impossible.  Second,  that  without 
European  intervention  in  some  form  or  other,  peace  was  impossible 
within  any  reasonable  period;  that  a  peace  must  be  preceded  by  an 
armistice,  with  our  ports  open  to  the  commerce  of  the  world. 

I  omitted  to  mention  that  in  speaking  of  Mexican  affairs,  I  said  that 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  sent  to  the  Senate  the  treaty  negotiated  by  Mr. 
Corwin,  that  this  was  in  fact  a  subsidy  of  eleven  millions  of  dollars  to 
enable  Juarez  to  carry  on  the  war  against  France ;  he  replied,  but  the 
Senate  will  not  ratify  it ;  of  this,  I  said,  I  had  no  means  to  form  an 
opinion,  but  at  any  rate  it  was  clear  that  the  President  approved  of 
its  principle  and  the  Executive  virtually  controlled  the  Foreign  rela 
tions.  I  said  that  I  had  heard  from  what  seemed  to  be  good  authority, 
although  I  did  not  pretend  to  vouch  for  the  truth  of  the  Report,  that 
Schufeldt,  U.  S.  Consul  General  at  Havana,  had  gone  to  Mexico  and 
placed  at  the  disposition  of  Juarez  two  millions  of  dollars,  being  the 
cash  installment  stipulated  by  the  Treaty,  and  if  this  were  so,  the 
Mexican  army  was  now  waging  war  against  France  with  means  fur- 


520        KETBOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

nished  by  the  Federal  treasury.  I  also  alluded  to  the  presence  of  the 
Orleans  Princes  in  the  Federal  armies  as  evidence  at  least  that  Lin 
coln  was  not  particularly  desirous  to  avoid  giving  just  cause  of  offense 
to  France,  and  mentioned  that  the  son  of  the  Prince  de  Joinville  was 
now  serving  as  a  midshipman  on  board  of  a  Federal  man-of-war,  a 
fact  of  which  he  had  been  previously  ignorant. 

I  suggested  that  without  violating  neutrality  we  might  be  allowed 
to  communicate  with  our  government  by  French  ships  of  war  visiting 
our  ports;  that  such  communication  was  called  for  even  by  French 
interests;  that  it  was  important  that  Southern  newspapers  should 
be  freely  received  to  neutralize  the*  false  statements  of  the  Northern 
Press.  The  Emperor  replied  that  such  a  request  seemed  reasonable 
and  that  he  would  consider  it. 

Finding  that  the  Interview  had  been  sufficiently  prolonged,  I  rose 
to  take  leave,  saying  that  I  had  already  too  much  abused  his  indul 
gence;  that  I  had  perhaps  omitted  to  present  some  arguments  which 
if  not  new  to  him,  were  from  a  different  point  of  view,  but  that  I  had 
prepared  a  formal  demand  of  recognition  in  which  they  were  embodied, 
and  that  I  intended  to  present  them  to  M.  Thouvenel,  as  soon  as  he 
should  return  from  England,  where  he  then  was,  and  I  would  feel 
much  obliged,  if  he  saw  any  reason  to  object  to  the  course  I  proposed, 
that  he  would  intimate  his  wish.  He  said  that  he  saw  no  objection  to 
my  presenting  my  demand,  he  of  course  said  nothing  to  compromit 
himself  as  to  the  answer  that  would  be  given.  At  parting  he  said  that 
he  hoped  in  future  there  would  be  less  difficulty  in  my  seeing  him  than 
had  heretofore  existed. 

On  the  whole  my  interview  was  most  satisfactory.  I  had  been  led 
to  expect  from  what  I  had  heard  of  his  habitual  manner  that  he  would 
be  extremely  reserved,  confining  himself  to  asking  questions,  or  inti 
mating  on  what  points  he  wished  me  to  speak,  with  occasional  brief 
observations  on  his  part ;  on  the  contrary  he  was  frank,  unreserved,  I 
might  perhaps  say  cordial;  placing  me  entirely  at  my  ease  by  th& 
freedom  with  which  he  spoke  himself.  Although  he  said  nothing  to 
commit  himself  as  to  his  future  course  I  left  him  with  the  decided 
impression  that  if  England  long  persevered  in  obstinate  inaction  he 
would  take  the  responsibility  of  moving  by  himself. 


McCLELLAN'S  COLLAPSE  AT  RICHMOND       521 
WEED  TO  BIGELOW 

ALBANY,  July  27,  1862. 
My  dear  Friend: 

We  are  in  "a  fix. "  Checked  at  every  point,  we  shall,  I  fear, 
soon  be  called  to  defend  every  position ! 

Amid  these  disasters  come,  of  course,  home  dissensions. 
The  newspapers  insist  on  conducting  the  war. 

McClellan  is  a  failure.  We  might  have  taken  Richmond  long 
ago.  We  lost  more  men  by  disease  than  the  victory  would 
have  cost. 

But  the  great  source  of  weakness  is  where  we  long  ago 
located  it.  For  this  there  seems  to  be  no  remedy.  There  is  no 
disposition  to  reform  where  reform  is  so  much  needed. 

Extreme  men  now  urge  Mr.  Lincoln  to  Proclaim  Emancipa 
tion,  and  he  is  considering  it,  tho '  his  Proclamation  would  ex 
pose  only  the  impotency  of  the  Government.  I  wanted  to  see 
events  come  along  logically,  as  they  might  now  come. 

The  Administration  is  also  considering  the  propriety  of 
offering  500,000  Bales  of  Cotton  to  those  who  will  come  and 
get  it.  Sanf  ord  will  probably  take  out  the  proposition. 

I  have  been  trying  to  induce  the  Government  to  take 
Charleston  immediately,  but  they  will  not  look  that  way. 

I  fear  that  enlistments  do  not  proceed  fast  enough  to  com 
pensate  for  the  emasculation  of  the  army  by  disease.  This  is 
a  fearful  thought.  Perhaps  I  am  morbid. 

We  ought  to  resort  at  once  to  the  draft.  That  is  equitable, 
and  would  bring  troops  promptly. 

We  are  quite  well  save  in  spirit,  and  often  talk  of  you  and 

Very  truly 


It  was  doubtless  the  sudden  collapse  of  McClellan 's  Richmond  cam 
paign  which  brought  President  Lincoln  to  the  determination  to  adopt 
his  policy  of  general  military  emancipation  much  sooner  than  he  would 
otherwise  have  done.1 

'Nicolay  and  Hay's  Life  of  Lincoln,  Vol.  VI,  p.  130.  See  also  diary  of 
Gideon  Welles  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  the  months  of  February  and 
March,  1909. 


522        RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

On  the  same  authorities  I  quote  from  the  diary  of  Secretary 
Welles : 

On  Sunday,  the  13th  of  July,  1862,  President  Lincoln  invited  me  to 
accompany  him  in  his  carriage  to  the  funeral  of  an  infant  child  of 
Mr.  Stanton.  Secretary  Seward  and  Mrs.  Frederick  Seward  were  also 
in  the  carriage.  Mr.  Stanton  occupied  at  that  time,  for  a  summer  resi 
dence,  the  house  of  a  naval  officer,  some  two  or  three  miles  west  or 
northwesterly  of  Georgetown.  It  was  on  this  occasion  and  on  this  ride 
that  he  first  mentioned  to  Mr.  Seward  and  myself  the  subject  of  eman 
cipating  the  slaves  by  proclamation  in  case  the  rebels  did  not  cease  to 
persist  in  their  war  on  the  Government  and  the  Union,  of  which  he  saw 
no  evidence.  He  dwelt  earnestly  on  the  gravity,  importance,  and  deli 
cacy  of  the  movement;  said  he  had  given  it  much  thought,  and  had 
about  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  a  military  necessity,  absolutely 
essential  for  the  salvation  of  the  nation,  that  we  must  free  the  slaves 
or  be  ourselves  subdued,  etc.,  etc.  This  was,  he  said,  the  first  occasion 
where  he  had  mentioned  the  subject  to  any  one,  and  wished  us  to 
frankly  state  how  the  proposition  struck  us.  Mr.  Seward  said  the  sub 
ject  involved  consequences  so  vast  and  momentous  that  he  should  wish 
to  bestow  on  it  mature  reflection  before  giving  a  decisive  answer ;  but 
his  present  opinion  inclined  to  the  measure  as  justifiable,  and  perhaps 
he  might  say  expedient  and  necessary.  These  were  also  my  views.  Two 
or  three  times  on  that  ride  the  subject,  which  was  of  course  an  absorbing 
one  for  each  and  all,  was  adverted  to,  and  before  separating,  the  Presi 
dent  desired  us  to  give  the  subject  special  and  deliberate  attention,  for 
he  was  earnest  in  the  conviction  that  something  must  be  done.  It  was 
a  new  departure  for  the  President,  for  until  this  time,  in  all  our  pre 
vious  interviews,  whenever  the  question  of  emancipation  or  the  miti 
gation  of  slavery  had  been  in  any  way  alluded  to,  he  had  been  prompt 
and  emphatic  in  denouncing  any  interference  by  the  General  Govern 
ment  with  the  subject.  This  was,  I  think,  the  sentiment  of  every  mem 
ber  of  the  Cabinet,  all  of  whom,  including  the  President,  considered  it 
a  local  domestic  question  appertaining  to  the  States  respectively,  who 
had  never  parted  with  their  authority  over  it.  But  the  reverses  before 
Richmond,  and  the  formidable  power  and  dimensions  of  the  insurrec 
tion,  which  extended  through  all  the  slave  States  and  had  combined 
most  of  them  in  a  confederacy  to  destroy  the  Union,  impelled  the  Ad 
ministration  to  adopt  extraordinary  measures  to  preserve  the  national 
existence. 

"It  had  got  to  be,"  said  he  (Mr.  Lincoln),  "midsummer,  1862. 
Things  had  gone  on  from  bad  to  worse,  until  I  felt  that  we  had  reached 
the  end  of  our  rope  on  the  plan  of  operations  we  had  been  pursuing ; 
that  we  had  about  played  our  last  card,  and  must  change  our  tactics, 
or  lose  the  game.  I  now  determined  upon  the  adoption  of  the  emanci- 


THE  EMANCIPATION  OF  SLAVES  DEFERRED     523 

pation  policy;  and  without  consultation  with,  or  the  knowledge  of, 
the  Cabinet,  I  prepared  the  original  draft  of  the  proclamation,  and 
after  much  anxious  thought,  called  a  Cabinet  meeting  upon  the  subject. 
.  .  .  All  were  present  excepting  Mr.  Blair,  the  Postmaster-General, 
who  was  absent  at  the  opening  of  the  discussion,  but  came  in  subse 
quently.  I  said  to  the  Cabinet  that  I  had  resolved  upon  this  step,  and 
had  not  called  them  together  to  ask  their  advice,  but  to  lay  the  subject- 
matter  of  a  proclamation  before  them,  suggestions  as  to  which  would 
be  in  order  after  they  had  heard  it  read.  Mr.  Lovejoy  was  in  error  when 
he  informed  you  that  it  excited  no  comment  excepting  on  the  part  of 
Secretary  Se.ward.  Various  suggestions  were  offered. 

"Mr.  Blair,  after  he  came  in,  deprecated  the  policy  on  the  ground 
that  it  would  cost  the  Administration  the  fall  elections.  Nothing, 
however,  was  offered  that  I  had  not  already  fully  anticipated  and  set 
tled  in  my  own  mind,  until  Secretary  Seward  spoke.  He  said  in 
substance,  'Mr.  President,  I  approve  of  the  proclamation,  but  I 
question  the  expediency  of  its  issue  at  this  juncture.  The  depression 
of  the  public  mind,  consequent  upon  our  repeated  reverses,  is  so  great 
that  I  fear  the  effect  of  so  important  a  step.  It  may  be  viewed  as  the 
last  measure  of  an  exhausted  Government,  a  cry  for  help ;  the  Govern 
ment  stretching  forth  its  hands  to  Ethiopia,  instead  of  Ethiopia 
stretching  forth  her  hands  to  the  Government/  His  idea/'  said  the 
President,  "was  that  it  would  be  considered  our  last  shriek  on  the 
retreat.  (This  was  his  precise  expression.)  'Now/  continued  Mr. 
Seward, '  while  I  approve  the  measure,  I  suggest,  sir,  that  you  postpone 
its  issue  until  you  can  give  it  to  the  country  supported  by  military 
success,  instead  of  issuing  it,  as  would  be  the  case  now,  upon  the  great 
est  disasters  of  the  war. '  ' *  Mr.  Lincoln  continued :  ' '  The  wisdom  of 
the  view  of  the  Secretary  of  State  struck  me  with  very  great  force. 
It  was  an  aspect  of  the  case  that,  in  all  my  thought  upon  the  subject, 
I  had  entirely  overlooked.  The  result  was  that  I  put  the  draft  of  the 
proclamation  aside,  as  you  do  your  sketch  for  a  picture,  waiting  for 
victory. ' ' 


FEEDERICK  W.  SEWAED  TO  BIGELOW 

DEPAKTMENT  OF  STATE, 

WASHINGTON,  July  28th,  1862. 
Sir: 

Your  dispatch  No.  26  has  been  received  and  read  with  much 
interest.    I  am  directed  to  state  in  reply  to  the  observations 


524        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

which  you  have  made,  in  regard  to  the  prospects  of  the  Euro 
pean  Harvest,  that  without  taking  into  account  the  large  re 
maining  stock  of  last  year's  cereals  in  this  country,  the  crops 
this  season  have  so  far  proved  to  be  the  most  exuberant  ever 
grown.  Europe,  therefore,  will  have  no  reason  to  fear  that 
her  necessities  for  grain  may  not  abundantly  be  supplied  from 
our  surplus.  We  also  have  and  shall  continue  to  have  on  hand 
an  ample  supply  of  gold,  which,  as  of  late,  will  be  continued  to 
be  exchanged  for  American  securities,  either  already  due  or  to 
become  so  in  future.  These  will  be  freely  received  until  the 
time,  which  we  hope  may  not  be  distant,  when  instead  of  our 
own  securities  Europeans  may  find  it  more  advantageous  to 
send  us  their  manufactures  for  our  grain  and  treasure. 
I  am,  Sir,  &c, 


BIGELOW  TO  AUGUSTS  LAUGEL 

PARIS,  August  8,  1862. 
My  dear  Laugel: 

At  last  the  document  of  which  I  wrote  you,  relating  to  the 
Mississippi,1  has  arrived.  It  looks  like  an  extremely  instruc 
tive  and  interesting  memoir.  I  wish  to  send  it  to  you  at  once, 
but  I  hesitate  to  send  it  to  London  without  farther  assurance 
that  you  are  not  campaigning  on  the  continent  with  the  Due 
d'Aumale,  whose  movements  are  chronicled  in  the  journals. 
Please  drop  me  a  line  of  your  whereabouts  and  I  will  send  the 
book  at  once.  If  you  know  of  any  private  hand  to  which  I  can 
confide  it,  so  much  the  better.  As  yet  no  paper  or  magazine 
this  side  of  the  Atlantic  has  noticed  or  probably  heard  of  this 
report. 

I  am  sorry  that  the  Orleans  princes  were  so  unfortunate  in 
choosing  their  time  for  leaving  America  as  to  expose  them 
selves  to  the  jibes  of  the  ministerial  presses  in  France  and 
England.  I  do  not  know  however  that  what  is  said  can  make 
much  difference  in  the  end.  History  will  record  with  gratitude 

1  Report  'upon  the  Physics  and  Hydraulics  of  the  Mississippi  River,  pre 
pared  by  Captain  A.  A.  Humphreys  and  Lieutenant  H.  L.  Abbott,  U.  S.  A. 


LAUGEL'S  FAITH  IN  THE  UNION  CAUSE         525 

the  services  they  have  rendered  America  in  this  crisis  and  will 
protect  their' names  from  the  malevolence  of  scandalmongers. 
I  am  in  better  spirits  at  present  about  affairs  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic  than  I  have  been  any  time  before  since  the 
war  commenced.  It  now  promises  to  settle  something.  The 
government  and  the  people  alike  will  be  forced  into  a  policy  in 
regard  to  slavery  which  will  have  the  element  of  permanence. 
Had  McClellan  succeeded  at  Richmond,  the  reactionists  would 
have  carried,  the  day  and  peace  if  made  would  have  involved  a 
restoration  of  the  status  quo  ante  bellum  which  would  have 
been  worse  than  separation,  after  the  war  had  got  thus  far. 
Now,  slavery  is  on  the  retreat  and  its  extermination  is  one  of 
the  most  certain  results  with  which  the  future  is  big. 

Yours  very  truly 


AUGUSTS  LAUGEL  TO  BTGELOW 

RICHMOND,  19th  August,  1862. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

I  would  have  answered  earlier  your  kind  letter  of  the  8th  if 
I  had  not  been  away  for  a  few  days.  Whenever  you  wish  to 
send  me  anything  you  can  send  it  in  Paris  to  M.  Collin,  80  Rue 
du  Bac,  who  is  in  constant  communication  with  us.  I  shall  be 
most  happy  to  study  the  interesting  report  you  are  so  kind  as 
to  give  me  and  will  always  be  grateful  for  any  communications 
of  that  character. 

You  will  not  believe  that  I  exaggerate  if  I  tell  you  that  your 
American  affairs  are  not  for  a  moment  out  of  my  mind;  the 
United  States  have,  after  my  own  native  country,  the  first  and 
most  prominent  place  in  my  sympathies  and  affections.  And 
there  is  indeed  much  now  in  your  country  which  can  give 
uneasiness  to  your  friends.  In  the  public  expression  of  my 
opinion,  I  systematically  express  my  belief  in  your  ultimate 
success :  but  in  my  for  interieur  I  often  feel  despondent  and 
need  the  enthusiasm  of  my  wife  to  revive  my  spirits. 

The  conversation  of  the  princes  who  are  returned  from 
America  is  a  source  of  great  interest  to  me  and  I  have  derived 


526        RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

much  valuable  information  from  it:  Among  the  reasons  of 
their  return  to  Europe,  some  of  which  I  am  not  at  liberty  to 
mention,  you  may  consider  principally  the  preoccupation  of  a 
possible  war  between  the  United  States  and  France.  If  such 
an  event  should  take  place,  it  would  be  better  for  the  French 
princes  to  have  retired  from  America  before  matters  came  to 
a  breakup.  You  are  better  placed  than  I  am  to  know  what 
grounds  there  were  for  such  a  fear ;  but  exaggerated  fears,  if 
they  were-  exaggerated,  of  this  kind,  are  none  the  less  honor 
able.  The  insidious  remark  of  the  French  and  English  minis 
terial  press  will  never  destroy  this  plain  fact:  in  the  hour  of 
trial,  the  United  States  have  received  the  voluntary  services 
of  the  French  princes,  and  during  a  whole  year  they  have 
shared  the  dangers  and  fatigues  of  the  Union  Army.  I  am 
preparing  an  article  on  your  affairs  for  the  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes,  but  the  very  uncertainty  of  the  actual  events  makes 
my  task  very  difficult  and  I  am  not  over  impatient  to  give  a 
form  to  my  opinions,  hopes,  and  fears. 

I  have  a  home  now ;  and  the  next  time  you  come  to  England 
shall  be  most  happy  to  receive  you  in  my  house  and  to  have 
you  consider  it  as  your  own.  Give  my  best  regards  to  your 
wife  and  to  Mr.  Dayton  and  believe  me,  my  dear  Bigelow. 

Yours  very  truly 


XIII 

THE  CEISIS  OF  THE  CONFEDEEATE  INSUEEECTION  FOEESHADOWED 

IN  revolting  against  the  Union  in  1860  the  Southern  States 
were  greatly  influenced  by  the  expectation  of  substantial 
support  from  Europe,  and  especially  from  the  large  cot 
ton-spinning  powers  of  England  and  France.  These  States 
must  have  cotton  or  a  famine— thus  reasoned  the  Confederates ; 
cotton  they  cannot  have  without  both  slavery  and  peace,  there 
fore  they  will  wink  at  slavery  and  will  soon  find  a  pretext  for 
intervening  in  some  form  for  peace,  which,  as  most  of  them 
were  sufficiently  infatuated  to  believe,  meant  the  independence 
of  the  South.  It  is  not  rash  to  say  that  but  for  the  confident 
expectation  of  transatlantic  aid  the  war  would  not  have  broken 
out  when  it  did,  if  ever.  The  South  was  singularly  unanimous 
in  the  conviction  that  cotton  was  king  in  Europe  as  well  as  in 
the  United  States,  and  that  an  interruption  of  its  supply 
would  be  so  serious  in  its  consequences  that  a  new  republic, 
where  cotton  was  to  be  king  and  slavery  its  corner-stone, 
would  be  welcomed  into  the  family  of  nations  as  the  surest 
possible  guaranty  against  the  recurrence  of  such  a  disaster. 

For  a  time  the  theory  gave  promise  of  yielding  the  fruit 
expected  of  it.  The  idea  had  been  quite  successfully  propa 
gated  in  Europe  during  the  earlier  stages  of  the  war  that 
slavery  had  nothing  to  do  with  bringing  it  on,  but  that  the 
Northern  States  were  animated  simply  by  a  lust  for  power 
and  territory,  while  the  South  was  only  defending  its  homes 
and  families  from  ruthless  invaders.  Even  Earl  Russell 
went  so  far  in  one  of  his  public  utterances  as  to  say  as 
much,  and  that  the  subject  of  slavery  was  not  to  be  taken  into 
account  by  foreign  statesmen  in  their  dealings  with  the  bel 
ligerents.  The  noble  earl  lived  to  change  his  opinion,  and  the 
Southern  leaders  discovered  before  the  war  closed  that  their 
most  formidable  enemy  was  this  of  their  own  household.  They 

527 


528       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

were  made  to  realize,  with  a  cruel  distinctness,  that,  with  a 
constitution  and  a  public  opinion  which  made  slavery  the  one 
institution  within  their  borders  which  was  too  sacred  to  be 
debated,  the  one  institution  which  neither  the  people  of  the 
Confederate  States  nor  their  delegates  in  legislative  assem 
blies  or  in  national  or  State  conventions  could  meddle  with, 
they  were  fatally  handicapped  for  the  struggle  in  which  they 
had  embarked.  They  could  not  throw  this  Jonah  into  the  sea, 
for  it  was  their  only  pretext  for  rebellion ;  to  retain  it  on  board 
was  inevitable  shipwreck.  The  abolition  of  slavery  meant 
peace  and  union  at  once,  and,  as  a  logical  consequence,  their 
success  in  war  meant  the  perpetuation  of  slavery— that  and 
nothing  else.  This  in  due  time  became  apparent  to  the  people 
of  Europe,  where  the  prejudices  against  chattel  slavery  were 
even  stronger  and  more  universal  than  in  Massachusetts ;  nor 
could  this  conclusion  fail  to  acquire  control  in  the  councils  of 
the  European  powers— willing  as  they  mostly  were  to  see  our 
Union  go  to  pieces— the  moment  they  began  to  look  about  for 
a  plausible  pretext  for  intervention.  They  found  that  in 
whatever  direction  they  put  out  their  hands  to  help  the  Con 
federates  they  became  in  spite  of  themselves  the  champions  of 
slavery.  This  was  inevitable,  but  its  results  the  Southern 
people  would  not  or  could  not  see.  They  had  an  idea  that  the 
prejudice  against  slavery  was  confined  pretty  much  to  the 
Puritans  of  New  England  and  a  few  cranks  of  Exeter  Hall. 
Having  been  brought  up  in  the  midst  of  it  all,  it  was  incompre 
hensible  to  them,  or  at  least  to  most  of  them,  that  a  man  of  a 
sound  mind  should  find  anything  revolting  in  the  "peculiar 
institution. ' ' 

In  selecting  John  Slidell  and  James  M.  Mason  as  commis 
sioners  to  further  their  interests  abroad,  the  Confederates 
were  most  unfortunate.  The  names  of  both  were  associated 
in  Europe  with  every  scheme  for  the  nationalization  of  sla 
very  that  had  been  presented  in  Congress  since  the  annexation 
of  Texas. 

Slidell,  while  representing  the  State  of  Louisiana  in  the 
United  States  Senate,  was  the  counsellor  and  abettor  of  the 
filibustering  expeditions  of  Lopez  in  1849  and  1850  for  the 
wresting  of  Cuba  from  Spain,  with  a  view  to  the  enlargement 
of  the  area  and  political  representation  in  Congres-s  of  the 
slaveholding  States. 


M.  AND  S.  UNFORTUNATE  SELECTIONS       529 

In  December,  1857,  Walker,  with  a  band  of  filibusters,  was 
captured  by  an  American  vessel  of  war  under  the  command  of 
Commodore  Paulding,  just  after  landing  at  Punta  Arenas  on 
the  coast  of  Nicaragua,  of  which  state  he  purposed  to  take 
possession,  having  once  before  landed  in  Nicaragua  with  an 
other  force,  whence,  after  a  warlike  occupation  of  some 
months,  he  was  expelled.  Soon  after  Commodore  Paulding 
made  his  report  to  the  Government,  the  political  associates  of 
Slidell  in  the  House  of  Eepresentatives,  under  his  inspiration, 
made  a  report  disapproving  of  the  conduct  of  Commodore 
Paulding  in  arresting  Walker  and  bringing  him  a  prisoner  to 
the  United  States.  Through  the  same  filibustering  influences 
Paulding  was  threatened  with  censure,  while  Walker  was  not 
only  not  convicted,  as  he  should  have  been,  and  dealt  with  as 
a  pirate,  but  was  allowed  to  go  at  large  to  plan  other  preda 
tory  schemes  upon  the  peaceful  neighbors  of  the  United 
States,  until  arrested  by  the  hand  of  Providence.1 

It  was  through  SlidelPs  influence  that  Soule,  also  of  New 
Orleans,  was  sent  out  to  bully  Spain  into  the  sale  of  Cuba  to 
the  United  States,  and  with  Buchanan,  then  our  Minister  to 
England,  and  John  Y.  Mason,  then  our  Minister  to  France, 
instructed  to  unite  in  the  declaration  of  the  conference  at  Os- 
tend  in  1854,  that  "the  acquisition  of  Cuba  was  a  political 
necessity  for  the  United  States,  to  be  accomplished  by  what 
ever  means,  fair  or  foul,  might  prove  necessary." 

In  the  following  session  of  Congress  Slidell  offered  a  reso 
lution  in  the  Senate  directing  the  President  of  the  United 
States  to  give  notice  to  the  European  powers  bound  together 
under  the  treaty  for  the  suppression  of  the  slave-trade  that 
after  one  year  from  date  the  United  States  would  cease  to  be 
a  party  to  that  treaty,  and  would  no  longer  maintain  its  quota 
of  vessels  upon  the  coast  of  Africa. 

Failing  to  secure  the  adoption  of  this  resolution  by  Con 
gress,  whereby  he  had  contemplated  a  reopening  of  the  slave- 
trade,  he  and  his  partisans,  using  Mr.  Buchanan,  then 
President,  as  their  instrument,  bullied  England  into  a  prac 
tical  renunciation  of  the  right  of  visit  and  search  of  suspected 
slavers  bearing  the  American  flag,  and  into  the  admission  that 
the  flag  alone  was  conclusive  and  final  evidence  of  nationality. 

1  Reports  of  committees  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  1st  Session  35th 
Congress,  Vol.  I,  1857-58. 


530       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

The  effect  of  this  was  that,  during  the  succeeding  twelve 
months,  more  than  a  hundred  vessels  were  ascertained  to  have 
been  fitted  out  and  employed  for  the  slave  traffic,  and  not  one 
convicted  by  the  courts  until  the  accession  of  Lincoln  and  the 
appointment  of  a  new  regime  of  prosecuting  attorneys. 

Slidell  was  also  one  of  the  parties  who  took  a  prominent 
part  in  securing  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  by 
which  it  was  intended  to  open  all  the  Northwestern  territory 
to  slavery. 

Not  content  with  the  impulse  given  to  the  African  slave- 
trade  by  England's  practical  abandonment  of  the  right  of 
visit  and  search,  in  the  session  of  1858-59  Slidell  introduced 
a  bill  to  place  $30,000,000  at  the  disposal  of  President 
Buchanan  to  be  used  in  negotiating  the  purchase  of  Cuba.1 

Mason  was  a  party  to  all  the  measures  for  the  extension  of 
slavery  that  Slidell  ever  proposed  or  advocated.  He  was  a 
member  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Foreign  Eelations  and 
signed  the  report  in  favor  of  giving  the  President  the  $30,000,- 
000  to  bribe  and  traffic  for  Cuba,  and  in  his  speech,  made  the 
day  the  report  was  presented,  reiterated  the  declaration  of 
the  Ostend  conference,  that  "the  acquisition  of  Cuba  was  a 
political  necessity  for  the  United  States. ' '  2 

He  was  one  of  the  authors  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  of 
1850,  which  made  it  a  crime,  punishable  with  fine  and  im 
prisonment,  to  harbor,  feed,  or  give  shelter  to  a  fugitive  slave, 
even  in  States  where  slavery  was  prohibited  by  law. 

He  was  one  of  the  inquisitors  who  besieged  poor  John 
Brown  in  his  last  hours  to  extort  from  him  information  by 
which  other  citizens  of  the  North  could  be  convicted  of  par 
ticipating  with  him  in  the  scheme  for  freeing  the  slaves  in 
Virginia  which  cost  him  his  life. 

The  letters  I  may  hereafter  have  occasion  to  cite  of  the 
Cabinet  officers  and  commissioners  of  the  Confederate  Gov 
ernment  were  among  the  spoils  of  the  war  acquired  by  the 
Federal  Government  after  the  peace  and  deposited  in  the 
Treasury  Department.  I  was  indebted  to  the  Hon.  Daniel 
Manning,  while  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  for  the  privilege 

1  Senate  Documents,  2d  Session  35th  Congress,  1858-59. 
*  Congressional  Globe,  January  24,  1859,  p.  538. 


CONSPIRACY  STILL  HATCHING  AT  TUILERIES  531 

of  inspecting  these  spoils  and  copying  such  of  them  as  still 
possessed  any  public  interest.  Though  they  came  into  my 
possession  more  than  twenty  years  after  they  were  written, 
they  have  the  best  of  chronological  rights  to  be  inserted  here. 
In  perusing  these  letters  the  reader  will  bear  in  mind,  how 
ever,  that  none  of  their  contents  were  known,  if  even  surmised, 
by  the  Federal  officers  or  the  general  public  at  the  time  of 
which  I  am  writing. 

This  correspondence  reveals  the  fact  that  the  first  inter 
view  of  Mr.  Slidell  with  the  Emperor  did  not  take  place 
until  the  evening  of  the  16th  of  July,  1862.  This  oppor 
tunity  was  secured  by  General  Fleury,  the  First  Equerry  of 
the  Emperor,  at  the  instance  of  Comte  de  Persigny. 

Slidell  had  three  interviews  with  the  Emperor,  and  three 
only.  The  second  one  was  at  St.  Cloud,  on  the  22d  of  October, 
and  the  third  at  the  Tuileries,  June,  1863.  He  never  met  the 
Emperor  again  officially.  Slidell  appears  to  have  had  one  or 
two  interviews  with  M.  Thouvenel,  Minister  of  Foreign  Af 
fairs,  but,  from  his  own  account  of  them,  the  interviews  con 
sisted  of  what  he  said  to  the  Minister.  What  the  Minister 
said  to  him  was  of  no  practical  importance. 


SLIDELL  TO  BENJAMIN 

25  AVENUE  D'ANTIN,  PARIS,  24th  August,  1862. « 
My  dear  Benjamin: 

You  will  find  by  my  official  correspondence  that  we  are  still  hard 
and  fast  aground  here  and  nothing  will  float  us  off  but  a  strong  and 
continued  current  of  important  successes  in  the  field.  I  have  no 
hopes  from  England  because  I  am  satisfied  that  she  desires  an 
indefinite  prolongation  of  the  war  until  the  North  shall  be  entirely 
exhausted  and  broken  down.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  selfishness  of 
English  statesmen  except  their  wretched  hypocrisy,  they  are  continu 
ally  canting  about  their  disinterestedness,  magnanimity  and  abnega 
tion  of  all  other  considerations  than  those  dictated  by  a  high  toned 


532       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

morality  while  their  active  policy  is  marked  by  egotism  and  duplicity. 
I  am  getting  to  be  heartily  tired  of  Paris.  My  position  is  exceptional 
and  of  course  a  false  one.  If  I  were  here  as  a  private  individual  I 
would  have  many  resources  of  society  from  which  I  am  now  cut  off. 
Official  and  diplomatic  circles  are  closed  to  me  and  I  do  not  choose  to 
compromise  the  dignity  of  my  government  by  having  recourse  to  the 
usual  means  of  obtaining  the  entree  of  private  houses.  My  eldest 
daughter  has  been  very  unwell  from  the  effects  of  long  and  painful 
excitement  developed  by  the  shock  of  the  false  news  of  the  death  of 
her  aunt  Beauregard.  If  she  be  not  restored  to  health  before  Novem 
ber  I  shall  take  her  to  some  more  genial  climate  than  that  of  Paris, 
probably  to  Nice,  Rome,  or  Naples.  In  my  conversation  with  M. 
Loubat  I  thought  it  good  policy  to  give  free  vent  to  all  my  feelings 
towards  our  Northern  brethren,  being  well  assured  that  Mr.  Dayton 
would  soon  be  in  possession  of  everything  that  I  said  and  that  his  first 
despatch  would  convey  it  to  Seward  and  Co.  I  have  written  three  or 
four  times  to  the  President  and  as  often  to  Hunter  and  you.  Mrs.  S. 
has  also  written  to  Mrs.  Davis— all  my  despatches  have  been  forwarded 
in  duplicate.  I  mention  this  that  you  may  not  suppose  that  I  have  been 
remiss  in  my  correspondence.  Eustis  is  not  very  well,  and  has  gone  to 
pass  a  fortnight  at  Baden.  I  suppose  that  you  have  heard  that  he  has 
a  son  and  heir.  Mrs.  S.  and  the  girls  beg  to  be  remembered  to  you. 

Yours  faithfully 


BIGELOW  TO  EDOUAED  LABOULAYE 

PAKIS,  August  28,  1862. 
M.  LABOTJLAYE, 

Dear  Sir: 

I  called  at  your  apartment  this  morning  hoping  for  an 
opportunity  of  thanking  you  on  my  own  behalf  and  on  behalf 
of  many  of  my  country  people  for  your  most  timely  and  ex 
haustive  articles  on  the  American  struggle  which  appeared  in 
the  Debats  of  the  26  and  27  insts.  If  I  do  not  miscalculate 
their  importance  they  will  place  Europe  as  well  as  the  United 
States  under  permanent  obligations  to  their  author. 

That  they  may  produce  their  due  effect  it  is  necessary  that 
they  should  enjoy  a  wider  circulation  than  they  are  likely  to 


EDOUARD  LABOULAYE  AND  THE  DEBATS  533 

receive  in  the  columns  of  the  Debats.  Another  of  my  objects 
in  calling  this  morning  was  to  know  if  it  would  be  agreeable  to 
you  to  have  the  two  pieces  republished  in  a  pamphlet.  If  so  I 
would  be  glad  to  charge  myself  with  the  expense  of  printing 
and  distributing  them.  I  think  it  desirable  that  a  copy  should 
reach  every  member  of  the  legislature  of  France,  all  the  diplo 
matists  and  the  principal  journals  of  Europe  and  the  promi 
nent  manufacturing  centres  of  France. 

If  you  should  think  well  of  this  proposal  I  would  be  glad  to 
receive  such  an  assurance  at  your  earliest  convenience.  It  is 
possible  that  you  might  choose  to  modify  the  introduction  in 
some  respects  for  a  pamphlet,  and  if  so  I  would  recommend 
you  to  change  the  title  of  Mr.  Brooks  in  the  fourth  column  of 
the  first  article,  whom  you  style  "Senateur,"  to  "Congress 
man  ' '  or  "  deputy  Brooks. ' '  He  was  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Kepresentatives  but  never  a  Senator. 

In  the  following  column  a  reference  to  the  names  of  Everett 
and  Bancroft  leads  me  to  doubt  whether  you  are  aware  that 
neither  of  these  gentlemen  has  ever  been  identified  with  the 
Anti-Slavery  party.  They  are  now  loyal  defenders  of  the 
Union  and  both  I  believe  would  justify  the  emancipation  and 
arming  of  the  slaves  if  necessary,  as  a  military  measure,  but  I 
do  not  think  either  has  authorized  any  one  to  suppose  they 
would  not  prefer  to  settle  this  war  if  possible  without  the  aid 
of  the  slaves  and  by  their  restoration  to  their  status  quo  ante 
bellum.  I  do  not  know  however  that  your  text  requires  any 
change  in  this  respect. 

Should  you  feel  disposed  to  entertain  my  proposition  I  will 
be  glad  to  receive  any  suggestions  as  to  the  printing  and  dis 
tribution  of  the  pamphlet.  Meantime  I  remain, 

Very  truly  and  gratefully  yours 


Very  shortly  after  I  reached  Paris,  I  read,  in  the  Journal  des  Debats, 
two  elaborate  papers,  written  in  a  spirit  of  cordial  sympathy  with  the 
North,  and,  what  surprised  me  more,  with  a  singularly  correct  appre- 


534       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

elation  of  the  matters  at  issue  between  the  two  antagonized  sections  of 
our  Union.  They  were  signed  "E.  Laboulaye,  de  I'Institut."  Know 
ing  already  something  of  M.  Laboulaye  as  a  writer  on  jurisprudence,  as 
a  professor  in  the  College  of  France,  and  lecturer  on  the  constitutional 
history  of  the  United  States,  I  recognized  at  once  the  value  of  his  alli 
ance  and  lost  no  time  in  addressing  him  a  note  acknowledging  my 
country 's  obligations  to  him  for  what  he  had  written,  and  begging  him 
to  allow  me  an  opportunity  of  waiting  upon  him  to  pay  my  respects 
in  person.  By  return  of  post  I  received  from  him  a  very  cordial  note, 
in  the  course  of  which  he  said  he  would  ' '  be  happy  to  serve  in  any  way 
a  cause  which  is  the  cause  of  liberty  and  justice, ' '  and  added : 

1 '  It  will  be  very  agreeable  to  me  to  make  your  acquaintance,  and  to 
enter  into  such  relations  with  you  as  I  formerly  enjoyed  with  the  re 
gretted  Mr.  R.  Walsh.1  I  am  residing  at  present  in  the  country,  but 
shall  return  to  Paris  the  20th  October.  If  it  should  please  you  to  come 
to  see  me  on  Thursday,  between  one  and  five  o'clock,  you  will  always 
be  sure  to  find  me. 

1 1  In  any  event,  on  my  arrival  in  town  I  shall  have  the  honor  to  in 
form  you  by  making  the  first  visit,  for  I  owe  you  thanks, ' '  etc. 

Soon  after  his  return  we  exchanged  visits.  When  I  called  I  found 
in  M.  Laboulaye  a  gentleman  of  apparently  middle  age— he  was  then, 
in  fact,  in  his  fiftieth  year — with  a  fine,  compact  figure,  about  five  feet 
seven  inches  high,  of  pleasing  address,  and  altogether  an  attractive- 
looking  man.  He  wore  no  beard,  nor  had  he  much  occasion  for  the 
razor;  he  had  the  rich  olive  complexion  which  prevails  among  a  cer 
tain  strain  of  the  Latin  race ;  his  voice  was  gentle  and  low,  though  clear 
and  admirably  modulated;  his  hair,  thin  and  brown,  was  brushed 
smoothly  to  the  head,  which,  with  his  black  frock-coat  buttoned  close 
to  the  chin— I  never  saw  him  dressed  otherwise  except  at  dinner— gave 
him  a  slightly  clerical  appearance. 

Before  we  separated  I  managed  to  come  to  a  perfect  understanding 
with  him  in  regard  to  our  American  affairs,  and  from  that  time  forth 
his  pen  and  his  influence  were  always  at  our  service,  and  that  too 
without  any  fee  or  promise  of  reward  other  than  that  which  he  might 
hope  to  realize  from  the  triumph  of  institutions  which  for  near  twenty 
years  he  had  been  annually  commending  to  his  pupils  at  the  College  of 
France. 

The  article  which  thus  brought  me  into  personal  relations  with  M. 
Laboulaye  was  an  elaborate  review  of  Gasparin  's  ' '  L '  Amerique  devant 
1  'Europe. ' '  I  felt  the  more  grateful  to  him  for  the  brave  and  impos 
ing  tone  of  this  paper,  because  it  marked  a  most  important  change  in 
the  course  of  the  most  influential  journal  then  published  in  France. 

1  Former  Consul  of  the  United  States  at  Paris  under  President  Buchanan. 


LABOULAYE  AND  NAPOLEON'S  PROPHECY  535 

The  Debats  had  been  vacillating  on  the  American  question,  with  a 
tendency  to  accept  Michel  Chevalier,  an  ardent  Imperialist,  as  its 
guide,  and  to  give  prominence  to  aspects  of  our  controversy  calculated 
to  stimulate  the  prejudices  of  European  states  against  the  Government 
at  Washington. 

Partly  to  secure  the  circulation  of  M.  Laboulaye's  paper  in  some 
quarters,  both  within  and  outside  of  France,  where  the  Debats  was  not 
frequently  seen,  but  more  to  encourage  him  to  persist  in  supporting 
the  cause  he  had  shown  an  inclination  to  espouse,  I  asked  his  per 
mission  to  reprint  it  in  a  pamphlet.  "I  am  completely  at  your  dis 
posal,  "  he  promptly  replied.  "I  shall  be  charmed  to  serve  a  cause 
which  is  the  cause  of  all  the  friends  of  liberty. ' '  The  articles  in  ques 
tion  were  designed  to  give  a  popular  expression  and  currency  to  the 
three  propositions  which  M.  Gasparin  had  sought  to  establish  in  his 
book: 

First— That  the  desire  of  perpetuating  and  propagating  slavery, 
and  of  making  it  the  corner-stone  of  a  new  public  policy,  was  the  true 
cause  of  the  revolt  of  the  South. 

Second— That,  constitutionally,  the  South  had  no  right  to  separate 
from  the  Union.  It  could  not  offer  in  defence  of  this  extreme  measure 
any  right  violated  or  menaced. 

Third— That  the  commercial  interests  of  France  counselled  neutral 
ity  on  her  part  as  the  promptest  and  surest  means  at  her  disposal  for 
ending  a  desolating  and  fratricidal  war.  The  political  interests  of 
France  required  her  to  remain  faithful  to  the  grand  traditions  of 
Louis  XVI.  and  of  Napoleon.  The  unity  and  independence  of  the 
United  States— that  is  to  say,  of  the  only  maritime  power  which  can 
balance  that  of  Great  Britain— is  for  Europe  the  only  guaranty  of  the 
freedom  of  the  seas  and  of  the  world. 

In  a  few  days  M.  Laboulaye  forwarded  to  me  the  revised  copy  of 
his  articles,  enriched  by  important  additions  to  the  text  and  an  instruc 
tive  introduction,  and  for  its  epigraph  the  following  prophetic  lan 
guage  of  the  First  Napoleon  on  signing  the  treaty  of  1803,  which 
doubled  the  territorial  area  of  the  United  States : 


' '  To  emancipate  the  world  from  the  commercial  tyranny  of  England, 
it  is  necessary  to  give  her  for  a  counterpoise  a  maritime  power  that 
shall  become  her  rival.  Such  are  the  United  States.  The  English 
aspire  to  dispose  of  the  wealth  of  the  world.  I  can  be  useful  to  the 
universe  if  I  can  prevent  their  ruling  America  as  they  rule  Asia.  .  .  . 
In  ceding  Louisiana,  I  strengthen  forever  the  power  of  the  United 
States,  and  give  to  England  a  rival  upon  the  sea?  which  sooner  or  later 
shall  abase  her  pride. ' ' 


536       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

This  pamphlet,  when  printed,  was  sent  to  the  two  hundred  members 
of  the  Institute,  to  most  of  the  Paris  bar,  to  the  diplomatic  representa 
tives  residing  at  Paris,  and  most  of  the  prominent  statesmen  and 
journals  of  Europe.  The  effect  of  it  was  far  greater  than  I  had  ven 
tured  to  anticipate.  It  was  the  most  thorough,  comprehensive  and 
dispassionate  statement  of  the  real  issue  between  the  North  and  the 
South,  and  of  the  bearings  of  our  struggle  upon  continental  Europe, 
from  a  perfectly  disinterested  source  that  had  reached  the  parties  it 
was  most  important  to  undeceive.  It  led  them  to  study  the  other  side 
of  the  American  question,  and  to  frequent  the  resorts  of  loyal  Ameri 
cans.  Friends  of  the  Union  multiplied,  and  those  who  had  been  dis 
couraged  and  silent  before,  were  now  emboldened  to  come  forward 
and  confess  their  sympathy  and  their  hopes.  Even  the  Debats  was  so 
strengthened  by  the  response  its  course  received  that  it  never  faltered 
again  in  its  defence  of  the  Union  cause,  nor  did  M.  Chevalier  ever 
appear  again  in  the  columns  of  that  journal  as  a  writer  on  the  domestic 
troubles  of  our  people.1 


The  motive  assigned  by  Napoleon  for  ceding  the  Louisiana 
Territory  to  the  United  States  as  cited  by  M.  Laboulaye  did 
not  reach  me  at  a  time  when  it  seemed  fortified  with  the 
authority  of  prophecy.  Confederate  ships,  built  and  equipped 
in  English  waters  and  by  English  subjects  for  the  most  part, 
had  swept  the  American  merchant  marine  entirely  from  the 
Atlantic  and  the  Pacific  Ocean  or  compelled  it  to  sail  under  for 
eign  flags,  while  every  vessel  of  our  navy  was  required  at  home 
to  blockade  Confederate  ports. 

This  certainly  did  not  look  much  as  though  the  First  Consul 
had  "  given  to  England  a  rival  upon  the  sea  which  sooner  or 
later  shall  abase  her  pride. "  It  is  true  there  had  been  a  time 
when  ships  were  built  only  of  wood  and  when  England  might 
have  entertained  apprehensions  of  such  a  rivalry.  School 
boys  were  wont  to  declaim  Burke 's  memorable  testimony  to 
the  prowess  of  our  merchant  marine  even  in  its  colonial  stage, 
when,  as  a  people,  we  were,  to  use  his  own  phrase,  "yet  in  the 
gristle. ' ' 

In  the  decade  ending  in  1860  the  shipping  entered  and 
cleared  in  the  direct  trade  between  the  United  Kingdom  and 
the  United  States  was,  British,  946,000  tons,  to  American, 

1  Some  Recollections  of  the  late  Edouard  Laboulaye,  by  John  Bigelow  (pri 
vately  printed). 


THE  STRING  TO  NAPOLEON'S  PROPHECY     537 

2,245,000,000  tons,  nor  had  England  at  that  time  any  vessels 
afloat  that  could  compete  successfully  with  the  New  York 
clippers. 

A  few  years  previous  to  1860  a  New  Yorker  crossed  the  At 
lantic  in  his  yacht  to  English  waters  and  brought  back  with 
him,  from  English  competitors  for  speed  under  sail,  the  cup 
which  they  have  ever  since  tried  in  vain  to  recover. 

It  was,  however,  in  that  same  decade  or  thereabouts  that 
England  discovered  that  she  could  build  and  run  iron  steamers 
cheaper  than  wooden.  She  had  then  in  her  bowels  what  was 
supposed  to  be  the  most  abundant  supply  of  iron  and  coal,  the 
two  most  expensive  constituents  of  a  steam  marine.  From 
that  epoch,  owing  partly  to  the  hopeless  competition  on  the 
ocean  of  wooden  with  iron  vessels,  and  yet  more  to  the  en 
couragement  of  privateering  by  England  during  the  Civil  War, 
our  commerce  rapidly  declined,  and  when,  in  the  .fall  of  1862, 
I  read  this  prophecy  of  Napoleon,  reported  by  Marbois  in  his 
"Histoire  de  la  Louisiane,"  I  felt  that  the  citation  by  Labou- 
laye  at  that  time  was  almost  a  mockery ;  but  the  prophecies  to 
which  the  Christian  world  bows  with  most  respect  are  those 
which  are  not  limited  in  their  operation  either  by  time  or 
space. 

The  time  has  arrived,  however,  when  no  one  can  any  longer 
refer  to  these  words  of  Bonaparte  as  proof  that  he  was  not 
also  among  the  prophets.  Among  the  many  blessings  with 
which  the  Civil  War  sought  to  indemnify  us  for  the  sacrifices 
it  imposed,  was  the  direction  it  gave  to  the  study  and  develop 
ment  of  the  mineral  wealth  of  the  country. 

When  England  began  to  build  iron  ships  she  was  believed  to 
be  more  abundantly  endowed  with  iron  and  coal  than  any  other 
nation  in  the  world.  We  have  since  discovered  that  in  four 
States  of  this  Union  alone,  perhaps  in  two  of  them,  we  have 
more  coal  and  iron  commercially  available  than  are  yet  known 
to  exist  in  all  the  rest  of  the  globe,  and  we  are  also  the  largest 
producers  of  copper  among  the  nations— the  three  minerals 
without  which  in  great  abundance  it  would  be  impossible  to 
construct  or  navigate  a  modern  navy. 

Since  the  Civil  War  we  have  been  furnishing  ample  evidence 
that  the  art  of  ship-building,  for  which  we  were  distinguished 
during  the  first  half  of  the  last  century,  has  not  been  lost. 

It  is  not  many  years  since  the  American  navy  stood  sixth  on 


538       RETEOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

the  list  of  naval  powers,  being  superior  only  to  Japan  among 
those  nations  which  make  pretensions  to  a  big  fleet.  It  now 
(1909)  stands  third  in  point  of  tonnage,  and,  counting  the 
number  of  vessels  under  construction,  it  will  soon  stand  third 
in  point  of  number. 

But  ships  of  war  alone  never  have  given  and  never  will  give 
to  any  nation  the  command  of  the  seas.  It  is  the  commercial 
marine  which  carries  the  flag  of  empire  on  the  ocean.  A  navy 
is  a  vanity,  without  a  foreign  commerce.  To  rule  the  seas  a 
nation  needs  foreign  markets  for  its  surplus. 

There  is  a  part,  however,  of  Napoleon's  prophecy  which  was 
not  cited  by  M.  Laboulaye,  but  one  which  it  becomes  the  Amer 
ican  people,  in  these  days  of  their  prosperity,  soberly  to  medi 
tate.  " Perhaps, "  said  Napoleon,  "some  one  will  object  that 
the  Americans  may  be  found  too  powerful  in  two  or  three 
centuries.  My  forecast  does  not  embrace  such  remote  perils ; 
besides,  one  may  expect  domestic  dissensions  in  the  future 
(rivalite  dans  le  sein  de  I'union).  What  are  called  perpetual 
confederations  only  last  so  long  as  neither  of  the  contracting 
parties  finds  an  interest  in  breaking  them.  It  is  the  present 
dangers  to  which  the  colossal  power  of  England  exposes  us  for 
which  I  wish  to  provide  a  remedy. "  The  negotiator  desig 
nated  for  the  Louisiana  negotiation,  presumably  Marbois,  did 
not  reply  to  this. 


BIGELOW  TO  SEWAED 

PARIS,  Aug.  29,  1862. 
Dear  Sir:    •• 

If  you  would  send  to  the  Consuls  full  particulars  of  the 
bounty  paid  by  the  government  to  volunteers  and  when,  where 
and  how  soon  after  enlisting  it  could  be  touched,  I  think  they 
might  induce  a  considerable  emigration  to  the  U.  S.,  especially 


A  DESPERATE   SITUATION,  BUT  NO  DESPAIR     539 

from  those  ports  whence  the  bounty  money  would  defray  the 
expenses  of  the  voyage. 

The  Minister  of  Marine1  was  married  on  the  18th  to  Beau- 
regard's  niece  at  an  obscure  church  in  the  Rue  Pepiniere. 
This  is  much  commented  upon  here,  as  it  is  usual  for  the  sover 
eign  to  attend  the  wedding  of  any  of  his  ministers  and  to  sign 
as  a  witness,  and  for  that  purpose  it  is  usually  solemnized  at 
the  Eoyal  or  Imperial  chapel,  wherever  the  Court  may  chance 
to  be.  The  absence  of  the  Court  on  this  occasion  and  the  ab 
sence  of  all  notice  of  the  event  by  the  Moniteur,  which  is 
also  a  little  remarkable,  has  been  generally  construed  into  an 
evidence  of  the  dissatisfaction  of  the  Court  for  some  reason  or 
other. 

I  commend  to  your  special  attention  the  two  admirable  ar 
ticles  in  the  Journal  des  Debats  of  the  26th  and  27th  inst.  from 
the  pen  of  M.  Laboulaye,  to  whom  we  have  been  indebted  be 
fore,  for  one  or  two  most  timely  and  effective  articles  in  the 
same  journal.  I  have  applied  to  him  for  permission  to  print  it 
in  a  pamphlet  with  a  view  of  circulating  it  among  all  the  mem 
bers  of  the  Diplomatic  Corps  throughout  Europe  and  through 
the  principal  manufacturing  centres  of  France.  As  he  is  in 
the  country,  I  must  wait  a  day  or  two  for  his  reply. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  more  truthful  records  of  current 
events  are  not  transmitted  to  Europe  by  the  telegraph.  Not  a 
steamer  arrives,  but  furnishes  a  pretext  for  covering  the  Con 
tinent  with  lies  of  the  most  pernicious  character  about  Ameri 
can  affairs.  Nor  are  these  lies  corrected,  one  time  in  ten,  and 
the  correction  if  made,  always  comes  too  late  to  be  of  any 
service. 

All  Europe  believes  that  the  Confederates  have  captured 
Baton  Eouge.  The  telegraph  has  never  corrected  the  elaborate 
announcement  of  its  reduction  and  the  capture  of  its  garrison 
and  immense  stock  of  arms  and  provisions. 

All  Europe  learned  by  telegraph  and  believed  that  a  fright 
ful  panic  pervades  our  country  at  the  prospect  of  conscription 
and  that  all  voluntary  enlistment  has  ceased.  Nor  has  it  yet 
transpired  here  that  any  one  state  has  yet  made  up  its  quota. 
Half  of  the  European  world  never  read  anything  about  our 

1  Le  Marquis  Chasseloup-Laubat. 


540       EETEOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

war  except  the  telegraphic  despatches.  Unfortunately  those 
who  occupy  official  positions  read  little  else  but  the  journals 
whose  business  it  seems  to  be  to  destroy  all  faith  in  our  cause 
and  prospects.  A  sensation  paragraph  in  the  Herald  bulletin 
is  given  as  a  rumor  with  five  or  six  other  items  and  just  as 
much  importance  here  is  attached  to  a  rumor  given  in  such  a 
way  as  to  a  distinct  affirmation  of  a  fact  or  event,  especially 
since  it  was  announced  that  the  government  had  assumed  to 
supervise  the  despatches.  The  work  could  not  be  done  in  a 
way  to  prejudice  us  more,  if  the  telegraph  were,  as  I  believe  it 
is,  in  the  hands  of  enemies. 

I  have  with  great  difficulty  procured  the  insertion  of  what  I 
think  may  prove  a  useful  article  or  communication  on  the  state 
of  our  affairs,  in  the  Opinion  Nationals  this  afternoon.  It  was 
written  by  M.  Loubat.  I  had  to  order  a  thousand  copies  to 
overcome  the  objection  to  its  length  and  to  the  few  complimen 
tary  words  to  the  Emperor  at  the  close,  which  were  the  vital 
part  of  it.  I  have  reason  to  believe  it  will  give  great  satisfac 
tion  in  that  quarter,  where  compliments  are  scarce. 

Yours,  &c. 


JAMES  BOWEN  TO  BIGELOW 

August  31, 1862. 
Dear  Bigelow: 

This  rebellion  presents  as  many  changes  as  the  kaleidoscope. 
I  wasted  half  an  hour  last  week  in  writing  a  letter  which  I  tore 
up  because  it  presented  such  gloomy  views  of  the  then  present 
and  the  future.  Today  we  are  more  hopeful— the  first  300,000 
will  volunteer  and  so  many  of  the  second  that  the  draft  will  be 
postponed.  In  some  states  it  will  be  unnecessary  and  in  others 
there  will  be  a  draft  for  only  a  portion  of  the  required  num 
bers.  The  truth  is  of  the  two  classes,  the  administration  and 
the  people,  the  latter  are  resolute,  determined  and  in  earnest, 


THE  WAR  SEEN  THROUGH  A  GLASS  DARKLY    541 

the  former  have  been  vacillating  and  feeble.  The  people  have 
from  the  first  had  a  policy— that  of  putting  down  the  rebellion 
by  every  means  they  could  use,  the  government  has  had  none 
other  than  has  been  evinced  by  some  futile  efforts  to  quell  the 
rebellion  by  moral  suasion.  The  battles  that  have  been  fought 
at  the  west  have  been  fought  independent  of  the  government. 
Those  on  the  Potomac  indicate  very  accurately  the  ability  of 
the  administration,  for  they  were  fought  by  orders  transmitted 
by  telegraph  from  the  War  Department.  Banks'  fight  two 
days  since  is  the  first  battle  under  orders  from  a  General  in 
the  field. 

The  Administration  would  in  peaceful  times  have  been  a 
respectable  government,  but  in  this  battle  of  gigantic  forces 
they  are  pigmies.  "Welles,  abused  as  he  has  been,  is  the  most 
respectable  and  the  most  respected.  He  has  accomplished 
more  than  the  War  Department  and  by  the  middle  of  Septem 
ber  he  will  astonish  Europe  by  the  tremendous  power  of  the 
Navy.  Stanton  is  of  great  physical  energy  and  that  is  all  can 
be  said  of  him.  Seward  lias  conducted  our  foreign  affairs  ably 
and  successfully,  but  he  and  all  of  them  are  incompetent  to 
conduct  the  affairs  of  the  country  at  this  crisis. 

But  it  is  ungracious  to  censure.  We  are  in  the  midst  of  a 
revolution  destined  to  be  very  bloody  and  to  bring  sorrow  and 
suffering  to  every  family  north  and  south,  yet  full  of  promise 
of  abundant  blessings.  The  very  indecision  and  imbecility  will 
have  been  a  means  of  lasting  good  through  its  temporizing 
policy.  The  rebels  have  made  such  progress  that  we  must 
abolish  slavery  to  put  down  the  rebellion.  Look  at  what  Con 
gress  has  done  and  only  could  have  done  because  of  the  rebel 
lion—Freedom  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  prohibition  of 
slavery  in  the  territories,  Homestead  Laws,  the  Pacific  Ea;l- 
road— these  are  the  first  fruits  of  the  rebellion,  to  be  followed 
by  the  proclamation  of  freedom  to  every  man  from  the  Lakes 
to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 

Yours  truly 


542       RETEOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

WEED  TO  BIGELOW 

ALBANY,  September  7,  1862. 
My  dear  Bigelow:    * 

Your  welcome  letter  finds  me  discouraged,  almost  to  the  last 
degree.  Not  that  we  find  ourselves  at  the  end  of  two  cam 
paigns  beaten  and  disgraced,  but  that  we  are  assuming  a  third 
under  auspices  which  promise  nothing  better ! 

If  our  government  had,  in  the  beginning,  comprehended  the 
nature  of  the  struggle,  and  adopted  a  policy  in  regard  to 
"Contrabands,"  it  would  not  now  be  embarrassed  with  that 
question. 

Now,  a  proclamation  which  we  are  unable  to  carry  into 
effect,  would  only  show  our  impotency.  For  the  first  six  or 
eight  months  Generals  were  allowed  to  repel  or  even  give  up 
slaves.  That  discouraged  them.  And  in  many  places  we  have 
been  unable  to  protect  those  who  came  to  us.  Thousands  have 
been  left  to  the  " tender  mercies"  of  the  Masters  they  had 
fled  from.  An  enlightened  energetic  policy,  at  first,  would 
have  alienated  at  leasi  half  a  million  of  slaves.  Now  it  is 
doubtful  whether  the  slaves,  generally,  care  to  favor  or 
trust  us. 

Again.  If  we  had,  after  "Bull  Bun,"  let  Eichmond  alone, 
and  struck  at  Charleston,  Mobile,  Galveston  &c.  &c.,  closing 
the  Ports  through  which  the  enemy  have  been  supplied  with 
what  they  so  needed,  their  condition  would  have  been  desper 
ate  and  their  cause  hopeless. 

I  discovered,  as  soon  as  I  returned,  that  all  was  lost.  How 
much  can  be  retrieved,  remains  to  be  seen. 

I  am  assured  that  the  French  Minister,  in  his  Dispatch  of 
the  3rd  inst.,  advises  mediation. 

We  are  raising  a  splendid  Army.  The  People  are  fully  up 
to  the  emergency.  But  is  it  again  to  be  led  to  the  slaughter? 
Who  is  to  command  it?  McClellan  is  too  timid  and  cautious. 
McDowell  is  a failure.  Pope  is  a  humbug.  The  West 
ern  Generals  do  not  grow  great. 

Stanton  is  not  all  we  hoped  he  would  prove  himself,  and  will 


THE  WAR  SEEN  THROUGH  A  GLASS  DARKLY    543 

probably  do  as  bis  colleagues  are  likely  to  be  compelled  to  do 
—resign. 

We  are  beginning  to  stir  in  tbe  election,  for  whicb  I  have 
"no  stomach. "  Seymour  or  Dix  will  be  tbe  Democratic  Can 
didates.  We  sball  nominate  eitber  Morgan  or  Wadswortb. 

Ever  Truly  Yours 


XIV 

ENGLAND'S  OPPOETUNITY? 

PALMEBSTON  TO  EUSSELL1 

94  PICCADILLY,  Sept.  14,  1862. 
My  dear  Russell: 

The  detailed  accounts  given  in  the  Observer  today  of  the  battles  of 
Aug.  29  and  30  between  the  Confederates  and  the  Federals  show  that 
the  latter  got  a  very  complete  smashing.  And  it  seems  not  altogether 
unlikely  that  still  greater  disasters  await  them,  and  that  even  Wash 
ington  or  Baltimore  may  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Confederates.  If 
this  should  happen  would  it  not  be  time  for  us  to  consider  whether  in 
such  state  of  things  England  and  France  might  not  address  the  con 
tending  parties,  and  recommend  an  arrangement  upon  the  basis  of 
separation  1 


EUSSELL  TO  PALMEESTON 

GOTHA,  September  17,  1862. 
My  dear  Palmerston: 

Whether  the  Federal  Army  is  destroyed  or  not,  it  is  clear  that  it  is 
driven  back  to  Washington,  and  has  made  no  progress  in  subduing 
the  insurgent  States.  Such  being  the  case,  I  agree  with  you  that  the 
time  is  come  for  offering  mediation  to  the  United  States  Government 
with  a  view  to  the  recognition  of  the  independence  of  the  Confed 
erates.  /  agree  further  that  in  case  of  failure,  we  ought  ourselves  to 
recognize  the  Southern  States  as  an  independent  State.  For  the  pur 
pose  of  taking  such  an  important  step,  I  think  we  must  have  a  meeting 
of  the  Cabinet.  The  23rd  or  30th  would  suit  me  for  the  meeting. 

1  The  Life  of  Lord  John  Russell,  by  Spencer  Walpole  (2  vols.,  Longmans, 
Green  &  Co.,  1891),  Vol.  II,  p.  360. 

544 


PALMERSTON-BUSSELL  PLOT  545 

We  ought  then,  if  we  agree  on  such  a  step,  to  propose  it  first  to 
France  and  then,  on  the  part  of  England  and  France,  to  Russia  and 
other  powers,  as  a  measure  decided  upon  by  us.  We  ought  to  make 
ourselves  safe  in  Canada,  not  by  sending  more  troops  there,  but  by 
concentrating  those  we  have  in  a  few  defensible  posts  before  winter 

ice'1  Yours  truly 


SEWAED   TO  BIGELOW 

Private 

WASHINGTON,  Sept.  18,  1862. 
My  dear  Sir: 

I  thank  you  for  your  acceptable  letter  of  the  1st  inst.,  which 
has  just  been  received.  But  the  papers  mentioned  in  it  have 
not  yet  come  to  sight. 

The  paper  of  M.  Laboulaye  will  be  looked  for  with  much 
interest. 

We  have  been  having  a  series  of  fearful  battles  in  Mary 
land  just  across  the  upper  Potomac,  thus  far  favorable— but 
at  the  moment  I  write  we  are  waiting  anxiously  for  the  report 
of  yesterday's  engagement.2  We  can't  define  the  military  posi 
tion  until  we  have  this  result.  ^  .,,  «  „ 

Faithfully  yours 


Dear  Bigelow: 


JAMES  BOWEN  TO  BIGELOW 

NEW  YOEK,  Sept.  19,  1862. 


Who  dare  foretell  for  24  hours  the  varying  fortunes  of 
the  war?  Last  week  the  North  was  moved  to  its  profoundest 

1  Life  of  Lord  John  Russell,  Vol.  II,  p.  361. 

J  The  battle  of  Antietam  is  the  one  referred  to  in  this  letter.  It  was  for 
news  of  this  battle  that  the  President  was  waiting  to  issue  the  Proclamation  of 
Emancipation,  proof  of  which  is  supplied  by  President  Lincoln's  own  narra 
tive,  recorded  and  published  by  the  artist  F.  B.  Carpenter,  whose  application 
for  permission  to  paint  his  historical  picture  of  the  signing  of  the  Emanci 
pation  Proclamation  called  it  forth. 


546        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

depth,  by  the  invasion  of  Pennsylvania.  Yesterday  we  were 
exulting  over  the  fancied  capture  of  the  whole  rebel  army  in 
Maryland.  Tonight  there  come  reports  of  McClellan's  defeat. 
The  war  baffles  all  calculations— it  is  folly  to  speculate  upon 
it.  A  shallow  philosophy  will  trace  its  victories  and  defeats  to 
vacillating  counsel  in  the  Cabinet  and  feeble  generals  in  the 
field,  but  if  ever  a  higher  power  condescended  to  direct  the 
affairs  of  war  and  fix  the  destinies  of  nations  surely  it  is  now 
and  with  us.  To  that  power  I  look  with  unfaltering  confidence 
to  bring  us  out  of  all  our  troubles,  for  the  right  is  with  us.  It 
cannot  be  that  this  great  people  has  been  raised  to  exist  as  a 
nation  for  80  years  to  be  broken  into  pieces  and  the  hopes  of 
good  men  throughout  the  world  destroyed  forever. 

Are  any  further  proofs  wanting  in  Europe  that  a  democratic 
government  is  a  strong  government?  What  will  they  think  of 
100,000  men  in  our  state  armed,  equipped  and  in  the  field  in 
three  days,  or  as  another  evidence,  the  Central  government  on 
the  mere  order  of  a  Secretary  consigning  20  respectable 
citizens  to  a  military  prison  without  warning,  on  the  mere 
inference  that  their  business  was  tending  to  discourage  enlist 
ments—though  that  was  an  instance  of  energy  that  will  hardly 
bear  repetition,  yet  it  was  done  without  a  revolt. 

I  think  they  are  beginning  to  frame  a  policy  at  Washington 
—Generals  Sherman  and  Saxton  are  to  proceed  forthwith  to 
South  Carolina  and  inaugurate  a  new  system  which  it  is  be 
lieved  will  bring  200,000  negroes  within  our  lines  in  sixty  days 
—this  however  is  to  be  kept  secret.  It  was  determined  on  day 
before  yesterday. 

I  wrote  the  preceding  last  night.  Today  we  have  reports  of 
decisive  victories.  The  steamer  will  carry  most  of  the  actual 
results.  Have  no  apprehensions  of  extensive  colonization  of 
the  blacks— the  scheme  is  simply  absurd  and  is  either  a  piece 
of  charlatanism  or  the  statesmanship  of  a  backwoods  lawyer, 
but  disgraceful  to  the  administration,  which  may  be  the 
solution  of  Lincoln's  speech.  I  think  it  was  to  allay  the  fears 
of  the  Irish  laborers  among  us  that  labor  would  be  reduced  at 
so  early  a  day  by  an  irruption  of  the  blacks.  We  mean  to 
subjugate  the  South  if  we  can,  but  I  know  of  no  sane  man  who 
proposes  to  make  it  a  wilderness.1 

1  For  an  account  of  President  Lincoln's  scheme  of  colonization,  see  his  Life 
by  Nicolay  and  Hay,  Vol.  VI,  chap.  xvii. 


THE  BORDER  STATES   SAVE   THE  UNION       547 

We  shall  accept  the  draft ;  the  600,000  men  will  be  raised  by 
volunteer  enlistments.  The  state  of  New  York  by  the  1st  of 
October  will  have  placed  200,000  men  in  the  field  since  the 
commencement  of  the  war. 

Yours  sincerely 


SEWAED   TO   BTGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  Sept.  19,  1862. 
My  dear  Sir: 

I  am  very  glad  and  very  thankful  that  you  have  taken  up 
the  subject  of  emigration  in  such  a  practical  way. 

To  some  extent  this  civil  war  must  be  a  trial  between  the 
two  parties  to  exhaust  each  other.  The  immigration  of  a 
large  mass  -from  Europe  would  of  itself  decide  it.  But  you 
know  nobody  is  authorized  to  do  anything  or  pay  anything,  for 
once  entering  into  this  kind  of  business  there  would  be  no  end 
of  trouble.  I  have  asked  Mr.  Stanton  to  give  me  a  schedule  of 
compensations  to  soldiers,  etc.,  which  as  soon  as  received  will 
be  sent  to  you. 

The  insurgent  general  made  a  very  unsuccessful  appearance 
in  Maryland.  The  result  of  this  disappointment  there  is  of 
immense  value.— Saving  the  border  states  is  saving  the  Union 
-Who  can  say  that  losing  them  would  not  be  to  lose  the 
Union  1  It  is  easy  to  theorize  about  cures  of  disease,  only  the 
careful  and  practical  physician  who  studies  the  symptoms 
carefully  and  regulates  his  treatment  by  them  day  by  day  can 
succeed  in  curing  them. 

Faithfully  yours 


LAUGEL  TO  BIGELOW 

BICHMOND  [ENGLAND],  20  September,  1862. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

I  have  received  the  valuable  report  you  have  kindly  sent 
me,  and  will  take  an  early  opportunity  of  using  the  valuable 


548       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

information  contained  in  it.  At  present,  I  feel  hardly  able  to 
give  my  attention  to  any  scientific  subject;  the  American  af 
fairs  are  so  absorbing,  that  I  cannot  think  of  anything  else. 
Your  people  must  be  fully  convinced  that  a  community 
founded  on  slavery  can  be  very  dangerous  in  a  military  point 
of  view.  We  need  not  go  as  far  as  Sparta  and  Eome  to  have 
a  proof  of  it :  while  the  enslaved  create  capital,  their  masters 
can  form  powerful  armies.  The  struggle  will  never  be  a  fair 
one  between  the  North  and  the  South,  so  long  as  you  give  to 
the  South  the  full  use  of  all  its  advantages.  Therefore,  if  it  is 
not  on  moral  grounds,  it  must  be  under  the  pressure  of  mili 
tary  necessity  that  something  will  be  done  against  the  slave 
power.— If  there  should  be  a  will  on  this  point  in  the  highest 
stations  of  government,  it  would  soon  be  felt  in  the  ranks  of 
the  administration  and  of  the  army.  I,  for  one,  am  not  afraid 
of  McClellan  or  any  other  General  putting  his  sword  across 
the  government's  policy— but  only  let  the  government  have  a 
policy.  There  is  some  truth  in  what  somebody  said  that  before 
the  war,  300  slaveholders  ruled  the  Union,  now  30  do  it;  the 
border  state  men  have  been  too  much  cajoled— M.  Seward 
must  know  what  an  irrepressible  conflict  is,  and  why  should  he 
care  so  much  about  nicety  of  proceedings,  when  he  has  such  a 
good  cause  to  fight  and  when  the  destiny  of  his  nation  is  at 
stake?  The  Border  States  must  necessarily  join  the  winning 
party ;  have  victory  on  your  side,  and  you  will  have  them  too. 
But  in  order  to  have  victory,  you  must  strike  the  rebellion  at 
its  heart,  which  is  slavery.  If  the  Confiscation  Act  had  been 
really  enforced,  it  would  perhaps  be  enough:  but  it  never  has 
been,  and  to  pass  such  acts  without  enforcing  them  is  very 
poor  policy.  It  shows  that  the  Legislature  and  the  executive 
do  not  bring  the  same  spirit  in  the  management  of  affairs  and 
in  the  prosecution  of  the  war. 

I  know  you  will  excuse  my  criticisms,  for  you  cannot  doubt 
my  sentiments  in  this  great  crisis.  I  have  done  and  am  now 
doing  my  best  to  keep  on  the  good  side  the  sympathies  of  my 
political  friends,  but  I  am  sometimes  at  a  loss  when  I  see  how 
my  wishes  and  facts  are  ill  in  accordance. 

I  shall  always  be  very  happy  to  hear  of  you.    Believe  me, 

Yours,  &c. 


SANFORD  AND  DAYTON  549 

H.  S.  SANFOED,  MINISTER  RESIDENT  AT  BRUSSELS,  TO  BIGELOW 

BEUSSELS,  21  Sept.  [1862]. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

I  have  yours.  Tell  anybody  who  applies  about  guns  that 
we  don't  want  any.  Encouraging  these  people  only  helps 
speculation  &  consequent  high  prices.  I  requested  as  a  favor 
of  the  Dept.  that  I  should  not  have  hereafter  this  sort  of  work 
imposed  upon  me.  Speculators  have  been  buying  in  the  pros 
pect  of  our  wants.  I  am  not  aware  of  any  direct  purchases  by 
our  Govt.  save  one  contract  for  100,000  which  I  was  told  of 
when  in  Washington. 

Pope  seems  to  have  done  all  that  the  Confederates  could 
have  desired  to  insure  a  victory.  I  get  one  consolation  in  all 
this ;  that  it  will  serve  to  give  a  i '  realising  sense ' '  to  our  peo 
ple  that  we  are  at  war  and  bring  up  that  grim  earnestness 
necessary  to  carry  it  on  successfully.  Eecognition  gains  im 
mensely  by  these  late  victories  of  C.  S.  A.  I  would  not  be  sur 
prised  if  Mr.  Dayton  found  it  necessary  to  ask  for  his 
passports  before  spring. 

I  don't  comprehend  the  Herald  articles,  whose  support  of 
our  cause  I  have  ever  looked  upon  with  suspicion — but  Bennett 
has  echoed  what  I  often  heard  repeated  and  was  sorry  to 
hear,  when  at  home,  as  calculated  to  injure  a  good  natured 
and  good  intentioned  man.  Do  you  see  Forney's  Presse?  I 
imagine  from  his  talk  that  he  has  come  out  in  a  similar  strain. 

If  D.1  would  feel  that  he  is  in  a  false  position  and  go  home 
he  would  win  more  honor  than  he  is  likely  to  now  with  our 
cause  drifting  onto  the  rocks  and  he  powerless  to  do  anything 
towards  saving  it. 

I  shall  probably  be  in  Paris  in  a  week  or  two. 
Cordial  greetings,  Truly  yours 

Dayton.  Sanford  was  thus  early  waiting  for  the  sky  to  fall  for  him  to 
catch  larks. 


550        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 
SANFORD  TO  BIGELOW 

BRUSSELS,  24  Sept.  [1862]. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

Nothing  will  be  done  in  Paris  before  the  return  of  the  Em 
peror.  Thouvenel  told  one  of  my  friends  last  week  that  the 
Italian  and  American  questions  were  both  to  be  brought  up 
then.  Weed  wrote  me  that  Mercier's  dispatch  recommended 
mediation— but  it  had  not  occurred  to  me  that  it  could  have 
been  inspired  from  any  source  on  our  side.  Seward  writes 
under  date  of  9th  that  Weed  and  Everett  are  expected  to  go 
out  "  unofficially "  by  next  steamer. 

I  am  very  much  depressed  and  mortified  by  the  news  from 
home— I  fear  more  than  entire  change  of  Cabinet.  There  are 
evident  squintings  towards  a  deposition— a  pronunciamento 
and  a  military  dictatorship.  Why  don't  Lincoln  shoot  some 
body?  His  lack  of  vigor  is  demoralizing  our  people  as  much 
as  our  defeats. 

Yours  ever 


PALMEBSTON  TO  EUSSELL 

BBOADLANDS,  Sept.  25, 1862. 
My  dear  Russell: 

Your  plan  of  proceedings  about  the  mediation  between  the  Federals 
and  Confederates  seems  to  be  excellent.  Of  course  the  offer  would  be 
made  to  both  the  contending  parties  at  the  same  time.  For  though 
the  offer  would  be  as  sure  to  be  accepted  by  the  Southerners  as  was  the 
proposal  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  by  the  Danish  Princess,  yet  in  the 
one  case  as  in  the  other,  there  are  certain  forms  which  it  is  decent  and 
proper  to  go  through. 

A  question  would  occur  whether  if  the  two  parties  were  to  accept 
the  mediation,  the  fact  of  our  mediating  would  not  of  itself  be  tanta 
mount  to  an  acknowledgment  of  the  Confederates  as  an  independent 
State. 

Might  it  not  be  well  to  ask  Russia  to  join  England  &  France  in  the 
offer  of  mediation  ? 

We  should  be  better  without  her  in  the  mediation  because  she  would 


PALMERSTON-RUSSELL  PLOT  PREMATURE   551 

be  too  favorable  to  the  North ;  but  on  the  other  hand  her  participation 
in  the  offer  might  render  the  North  the  more  willing  to  accept  it. 

The  after  communication  to  the  other  powers  would  be  quite  right, 
but  they  would  be  too  many  for  mediation. 

As  to  the  time  of  making  the  offer,  if  France  and  Russia  agree— and 
France  we  know  is  quite  ready  and  only  waiting  for  our  concurrence 
—events  may  be  taking  place  which  make  it  desirable  that  the  offer 
should  be  made  before  the  middle  of  October. 

It  is  evident  that  a  great  conflict  is  taking  place  to  the  northwest 
of  Washington,  and  its  issue  must  have  a  great  effect  on  the  state  of 
affairs.  If  the  Federals  sustain  a  great  defeat  they  may  be  at  once 
ready  for  mediation,  and  the  iron  should  be  struck  while  it  is  hot.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  they  should  have  the  best  of  it,  we  may  wait  a 

while  and  see  what  may  follow. 

Yours  sincerely 


While  this  plot  was  maturing  Earl  Eussell  returned  from 
the  Continent,  and  Lord  Granville  crossed  the  Channel  to  visit 
the  Queen  at  Gotha.  While  there  he  wrote  Eussell  as  follows : 

It  is  premature  to  depart  from  the  policy  which  has  hitherto  been 
adopted  by  you  and  Lord  Palmerston,  and  which  notwithstanding  the 
strong  antipathy  to  the  North,  the  strong  sympathy  with  the  South, 
and  the  passionate  wish  to  have  cotton,  has  met  with  such  general 
approval  from  Parliament,  the  Press  and  the  Public. 

Apparently  the  Queen  had  "sat  upon"  the  high  conspiring 
parties. 

Palmerston,  to  whom  Eussell  sent  Granville 's  letter,  "ad 
mitted  that  it  contained  much  for  serious  consideration." 


S.  P.  CHASE  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  Oct.  7,  1862. 
My  dear  Sir: 

I  have  read  attentively  M.  Andre  Cochut's1  article  upon 
American  finances,  in  the  Revue  des  Deux-Mondes,  a  copy  of 

1 A  French  publicist,  editor  of  the  National  in  1848,  a  director  of  the  Mont- 
de-Piete  in  1870,  and  its  actual  honorary  director  in  1890.  He  was  a  frequent 
contributor  to  the  Eevue  des  Deux-Mondes  and  other  prints  as  a  writer  on 
political  and  social  economics. 


552        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

which  you  kindly  sent  me.  The  Revue  is  in  the  Department, 
and  I  usually  look  through  it ;  but  I  might  not  have  read  the 
article  of  M.  Cochut  had  not  you  directed  my  attention  to  it. 
I  find  it  clear,  able  and  comprehensive.  There  are,  of  course, 
some  errors  of  fact,  and  consequently  some  of  deduction;  but 
they  are  so  trivial  as  not  to  impair  the  general  merit  of  the 
piece. 

I  beg  you  to  express  to  M.  Cochut  my  thanks  for  the  interest 
he  has  manifested  in  our  Finances,  and  to  ask  his  acceptance 
of  the  pamphlets  which  I  enclose,  from  which  he  can  gather  at 
least  a  general  notion  of  our  financial  movements,  since  I  have 
administered  the  department. 

If  my  hopes  are  realized  in  the  action  of  Congress,  our  pres 
ent  financial  state  may  be  called  a  transition  period.  Our  first 
period  was  that  of  payments  in  coin.  I  succeeded  in  borrowing 
at  reasonable  rates  of  interest  for  us  about  $175,000,000  in 
coin,  in  the  course  of  my  first  eight  months.  By  this  time,  the 
impracticability  of  continuing  payments  in  specie  and  provid 
ing  for  the  enormous  expenses  of  the  war,  was  manifest.  The 
banks  and  capitalists  could  not  furnish  the  required  amount  of 
coin,  except  at  rates  for  Government  Bonds  which  would 
enable  them  to  re-sell  in  Europe.  In  fact,  their  inability  to 
re-sell  with  profit  the  amount  they  actually  did  take,  was  the 
first  thing  which  led  them  to  contemplate  the  suspension  of 
specie  payments  themselves. 

The  only  possible  mode  of  avoiding  this  was  for  me  to  sell 
the  Government  Bonds  at  prices  which  would  insure  their  re 
sale  in  the  markets  of  Europe,  or  so  tempt  cupidity  at  home 
that  investors  in  other  securities  would  sell  them,  in  order  to 
obtain  means  for  the  purchase  of  the  Bonds  of  the  United 
States.  I  saw  clearly  that,  if  I  attempted  to  go  on  with  the  sale 
of  Bonds,  they  would  rapidly  depreciate,  and  the  Public  debt 
in  a  few  months  become  so  great  as  to  destroy  all  hope  of  ob 
taining  the  large  amount  of  means  necessary  to  carry  on  the 
war. 

There  was  but  one  alternative— to  allow  the  Banks  to 
suspend,  and  issue  a  national  currency.  This  was  borrowing, 
to  the  extent  of  the  emission,  without  interest;  an  advantage 
which  more  than  compensated,  perhaps,  the  rise  in  prices  in 
evitably  following  the  increase  of  the  volume  of  circulation 
caused  by  the  National  emission.  The  result,  however,  has 


CHASE  DEFENDS  HIS  REVENUE  POLICY      553 

been  far  less  unfavorable  to  the  country,  than  would  have  been 
the  forced  sale  of  Bonds ;  the  credit  of  the  National  securities 
has  been  maintained  at  a  much  higher  rate,  even  compared 
with  gold,  than  could  have  possibly  been  attained  had  the 
policy  of  forced  sales  been  adopted ;  and  the  general  business 
of  the  country  has  been  conducted  with  much  more  satisfaction 
and  benefit. 

Still  it  is  plain  enough  that  a  paper  money  system  cannot 
be  permanently  relied  upon.  To  avoid  the  indefinite  increase 
of  a  Federal  circulation,  Congress  provided  for  the  payment 
of  interest  in  specie,  and  for  the  conversion  of  the  notes  into 
Bonds  payable  in  twenty  years,  and  redeemable  after  five. 
Conversion,  however,  did  not  answer  expectation,  and  when  I 
called  on  Congress  for  an  increase  of  the  emission  beyond  that 
already  authorized,  I  proposed  to  substitute  simple  receivabil- 
ity  for  all  loans  made  by  the  Government,  in  lieu  of  a  legal 
convertibility  into  a  particular  Loan— leaving  to  the  discretion 
of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  the  adjustment  of  the  cur 
rency  to  Bonds,  by  loans  at  such  periods  as  would  insure  the 
largest  investment  of  the  Notes. 

Congress  did  not  see  fit  to  adopt  my  views ;  and  the  practical 
result  has  been  that  conversions  up  to  this  moment  have  been 
very  slow  and  inconsiderable.  I  think  the  result  would  have 
been  very  different,  had  my  suggestion  been  adopted.  Con 
gress,  no  doubt,  anticipated  a  much  more  vigorous  and  suc 
cessful  prosecution  of  the  war,  and  had  this  anticipation  been 
realized,  the  convertibility  feature  would  have  worked  better, 
though  still  not  so  well  as  receivability. 

I  enclose  a  statement,  from  which  you  will  see  the  exact 
condition  of  the  National  Debt  on  last  Cabinet  day  (Tuesday). 

Payments  by  United  States  Notes,  and  their  consequent  cir 
culation,  may  be  called  the  second  period  of  our  finances.  I 
have  already  said  that  I  regard  it  as  a  period  of  transition. 
Transition  to  what?  you  may  ask.  I  will  proceed  to  explain. 

The  United  States  Notes  now  issued  amounted  on  Tuesday 
to  $199,436,000.  Of  them,  say  $25,000,000,  being  receivable  for 
duties  the  same  as  gold,  are  held  of  course  at  a  high  premium 
and  are  out  of  circulation.  $22,080,376  more  are  in  the  Trea 
sury  proper,  and  with  the  Treasurer  and  the  several  assistant 
Treasurers  and  Depositaries,  to  the  credit  of  Disbursing  Offi 
cers  ;  leaving  $152,355,624  in  circulation,  i.e.,  in  the  vaults  of 


554        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

banks  and  .bankers  and  in  the  hands  of  the  people.  This 
circulation  has  not  displaced  that  of  the  banks  as  yet,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  has  actually  caused  its  increase.  It  has,  however, 
weakened  it  with  the  people  who  are  now  anxious  for  a  Na 
tional  Currency,  uniform  throughout  the  country,  which  no 
State  bank  can  furnish. 

Anticipating  this  result,  I  proposed  to  Congress  at  the  last 
session  a  general  banking  system  for  the  United  States,  iden 
tical  in  its  main  features  with  the  system  organized  in  New 
York  and  adopted  in  Ohio.  A  bill,  of  which  I  send  you  a  copy, 
was  prepared  with  great  care  and  reported  from  the  Commit 
tee  of  Ways  and  Means.  Its  main  features  are,  the  prepara 
tion  and  supply  of  a  uniform  currency  by  the  United  States ; 
the  issue  of  it  by  organization  under  the  law,  throughout  the 
country;  and  the  security  afforded  to  the  holders  by  the  de 
posit  of  United  States  Bonds  in  the  Treasury  Department. 

This  arrangement  will  bring  to  the  support  of  the  public 
credit  the  whole  banking  interest  of  the  country.  It  can  be 
carried  into  effect  by  the  temporary  use  of  United  States 
Notes,  without  any  considerable  jar  or  disturbance;  it  will 
furnish  a  perfectly  secure  currency  to  the  country,  restricted 
in  its  amount  by  actual  capital,  and  by  the  wants  of  business ; 
it  will  open,  with  the  gradual  development  of  the  country,  a 
gradually  enlarged  market  for  the  securities  of  the  govern 
ment,  and  thus  sustain  their  credit  at  the  highest  point ;  and  it 
will  finally  give  to  the  government  a  fair  seigniorage  of  about 
two  per  cent  of  the  circulation,  while  it  will  allow  liberal  com 
pensation  to  the  associations  who  will  distribute  the  circula 
tion  to  the  people,  and  primarily  at  least  protect  it  by 
redemption  on  demand,  in  coin. 

In  my  judgment,  if  the  debt  is  kept  within  any  reasonable 
limit  by  active  prosecution  of  the  war  and  tolerable  economy 
in  expenditure,  the  adoption  of  this  system  will  furnish  all  the 
money  that  is  needed,  at  reasonable  rates,  and  insure  an  early 
return  to  specie  payments  without  any  serious  business  con 
vulsion.  Even  should  war  be  unhappily  protracted  beyond 
the  current  financial  year,  the  adoption  of  this  system,  by 
uniting  the  capital  of  the  country  with  the  credit  of  the  govern 
ment,  will  probably  avert  great  disasters  otherwise  to  be  ap 
prehended. 

I  do  not  know  that  I  make  myself  quite  intelligible ;  but  if  I 


CHASE  DEFENDS  HIS  REVENUE  POLICY      555 

do  you  will  see  that  I  hope,  not  without  some  reason,  to  be  able 
to  convert  our  financial  troubles  into  permanent  benefits  to  the 
country;  and  that  the  periods  of  coin  payments,  of  United 
States  Notes  payments,  and  of  payments,  at  last,  in  a  mixed 
currency  of  coin  and  secured  bank  notes,  are  not  only  com 
patible  with,  but  required  by  the  best  interests  of  the  country, 
involved  as  it  is  in  costly  civil  war. 

As  to  the  war  itself,  its  prosecution  has  neither  equalled  my 
expectations  or  my  hopes.  It  is  not  without  reason,  perhaps, 
that  many  think  its  delays  and  losses  have  been  permitted  by 
divine  Providence,  not  merely  as  a  means  of  punishment  for 
our  complicity  with  slavery,  but  as  a  stimulus  to  practical 
measures  for  the  liberation  of  the  enslaved.  War,  under  our 
constitution,  is,  as  you  know,  the  only  opportunity  of  freedom 
through  National  intervention.  With  the  opportunity  comes 
the  duty.  The  course  of  events  is  in  the  hands  of  God,  and  it 
cannot  be  questioned  that  they  have  been  so  shaped  as  to  fur 
nish  the  opportunity  and  almost  coerce  the  performance  of  the 
duty.  It  is  remarked  by  many  that  from  the  time  of  the 
revocation  of  Genl.  Hunter's  order1  to  the  time  of  the  proc 
lamation  we  had  no  substantial  successes,  and  that  since  the 
proclamation  we  have  had  as  yet  no  reverses,  but  on  the  con 
trary  there  seems  to  be  now  everywhere  a  more  rigorous  reso 
lution  to  push  the  war  in  every  direction  to  a  successful  issue 
in  the  absolute  suppression  of  the  rebellion,  than  has  been 
manifested  for  months  past.  I  am  not  connected  at  all  di 
rectly,  and  hardly  at  all  indirectly  with  the  management  of 
military  matters,  but  what  I  see  of  determination  and  prepara 
tion  greatly  encourages  me.  Until  recently  during  the  past 
eight  weeks,  I  have  almost  despaired  of  our  finances.  I  am 
now  satisfied  that  if  present  appearances  do  not  deceive  me 
the  war  will  be  closed,  and  no  debt  left  which  cannot  easily  be 
managed,  and  in  a  few  years  fully  discharged.  So  mote  it  be. 

With  great  regard, 

Very  truly  your  friend 


1  General  Hunter  was  in  command  of  the  Department  of  the  South,  when, 
March  31,  1862,  feeling  that  slavery  and  martial  law  were  incompatible,  he 
declared  all  slaves  in  his  department  free.  The  President  annulled  the  order 
and  wrote  to  Chase,  who  wished  the  order  to  stand:  "No  commanding  Gen 
eral  shall  do  such  a  thing  upon  my  responsibility,  without  consulting  me." 


556        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

The  allusions  in  the  preceding  letter  of  Secretary  Chase  to 
General  Hunter 's  proclamation,  and  the  letter  which  follows 
later  from  Senator  King,  relate  to  the  Emancipation  Procla 
mation  of  President  Lincoln  himself,  which  was  signed  on  the 
22d  of  September,  1862.  It  had  been  read  and  discussed  in  the 
Cabinet  the  same  day,  and,  though  it  was  adopted  finally  with 
entire  unanimity,  it  was  received  by  most  of  the  Cabinet  with 
surprise.  Blair  and  Bates  raised  some  questions  at  first, 
which,  however,  they  finally  withdrew. 

Of  the  President's  impressive  discourse  to  his  Cabinet  on 
this  occasion  Mr.  Secretary  Chase  has  left  this  admirable  re 
port:' 

Gentlemen :  I  have,  as  you  are  aware,  thought  a  great  deal  about 
the  relations  of  this  war  to  slavery ;  and  you  all  remember  that,  several 
weeks  ago,  I  read  to  you  an  order  I  had  prepared  on  this  subject, 
which,  on  account  of  objections  made  by  some  of  you,  was  not  issued. 
Ever  since  then  my  mind  has  been  much  occupied  with  this  subject, 
and  I  have  thought,  all  along,  that  the  time  for  acting  on  it  might  prob 
ably  come.  I  think  the  time  has  come  now.  I  wish  it  was  a  better  time. 
I  wish  that  we  were  in  a  better  condition.  The  action  of  the  army 
against  the  rebels  has  not  been  quite  what  I  should  have  best  liked. 
But  they  have  been  driven  out  of  Maryland,  and  Pennsylvania  is  no 
longer  in  danger  of  invasion.  When  the  rebel  army  was  at  Frederick, 
I  determined,  as  soon  as  it  should  be  driven  out  of  Maryland,  to  issue 
a  proclamation  of  emancipation,  such  as  I  thought  most  likely  to  be 
useful.  I  said  nothing  to.  any  one,  but  I  made  the  promise  to  myself 
and  (hesitating  a  little)  to  my  Maker.  The  rebel  army  is  now  driven 
out,  and  I  am  going  to  fulfil  that  promise.  I  have  got  you  together  to 
hear  what  I  have  written  down.  I  do  not  wish  your  service  about  the 
main  matter,  for  that  I  have  determined  for  myself.  This  I  say  with 
out  intending  anything  but  respect  for  any  one  of  you.  But  I  already 
know  the  views  of  each  on  this  question.  They  have  been  heretofore 
expressed,  and  I  have  considered  them  as  thoroughly  and  carefully  as 
I  can.  What  I  have  written  is  that  which  my  reflections  have  deter 
mined  me  to  say.  If  there  is  anything  in  the  expressions  I  use,  or  in 
any  minor  matter,  which  any  one  of  you  thinks  had  best  be  changed, 
I  shall  be  glad  to  receive  the  suggestions.  One  other  observation  I  will 
make.  I  know  very  well  that  many  others  might,  in  this  matter  as  in 
others,  do  better  than  I  can ;  and  if  I  was  satisfied  that  the  public  con 
fidence  was  more  fully  possessed  by  any  one  of  them  than  by  me,  and 
knew  of  any  constitutional  way  in  which  he  could  be  put  in  my  place, 
he  should  have  it.  I  would  gladly  yield  it  to  him.  But,  though  I 
believe  that  I  have  not  so  much  of  the  confidence  of  the  people  as  I  had 
some  time  since,  I  do  not  know  that,  all  things  considered,  any  other 


LINCOLN  PROCLAIMS  EMANCIPATION          557 

person  has  more ;  and,  however  this  may  be,  there  is  no  way  in  which 
I  can  have  any  other  man  put  where  I  am.  I  am  here ;  I  must  do  the 
best  I  can,  and  bear  the  responsibility  of  taking  the  course  which  I 
feel  I  ought  to  take.1 

This  Proclamation,  perhaps  the  most  important  document 
that  has  thus  far  ever  issued  from  Washington,  reads  as  fol 
lows: 

I,  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the  United  Statls  of  America,  and 
Commander-in- Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy  thereof,  do  hereby  pro 
claim  and  declare  that  hereafter,  as  heretofore,  the  war  will  be 
prosecuted  for  the  object  of  practically  restoring  the  constitutional 
relations  between  the  United  States  and  each  of  the  States  and  the 
people  thereof,  in  which  States  that  relation  is  or  may  be  suspended  or 
disturbed.  That  it  is  my  purpose,  upon  the  next  meeting  of  Congress, 
to  again  recommend  the  adoption  of  a  practical  measure,  tendering 
pecuniary  aid  to  the  free  acceptance  or  rejection  of  all  the  slave  States, 
so-called,  the  people  whereof  may  not  then  be  in  rebellion  against 
the  United  States,  and  which  States  may  then  have  voluntarily 
adopted,  or  thereafter  may  voluntarily  adopt,  the  immediate  or  grad 
ual  abolishment  of  slavery  within  their  respective  limits ;  and  that  the 
effort  to  colonize  persons  of  African  descent,  with  their  consent,  upon 
this  continent  or  elsewhere,  with  the  previously  obtained  consent  of 
the  governments  existing  there,  will  be  continued.  That  on  the  first 
day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred 
and  sixty-three,  all  persons  held  as  slaves  within  any  State,  or  desig 
nated  part  of  a  State,  the  people  whereof  shall  then  be  in  rebellion 
against  the  United  States,  shall  be  then,  thenceforward,  and  forever 
free;  and  the  Executive  Government  of  the  United  States,  including 
the  military  and  naval  authorities  thereof,  will  recognize  and  main 
tain  the  freedom  of  such  persons,  and  will  do  no  act  or  acts  to  repress 
such  persons,  or  any  of  them,  in  any  efforts  they  may  make  for  their 
actual  freedom.  That  the  Executive  will,  on  the  first  day  of  January 
aforesaid,  by  proclamation,  designate  the  States,  or  parts  of  States  if 
any,  in  which  the  people  thereof,  respectively,  shall  then  be  in  rebellion 
against  the  United  States ;  and  the  fact  that  any  State,  or  the  people 
thereof,  shall,  on  that  day,  be  in  good  faith  represented  in  the  Con 
gress  of  the  United  States  by  members  chosen  thereto  at  elections, 
wherein  a  majority  of  the  qualified  voters  of  such  State  shall  have 
participated,  shall,  in  the  absence  of  strong  countervailing  testimony, 
be  deemed  conclusive  evidence  that  such  State,  and  the  people  thereof, 
are  not  then  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States. 

1  Abraham  Lincoln :  A  History,  by  Nicolay  and  Hay,  Vol.  VI,  pp.  158,  159. 


558        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Then,  after  reciting  the  language  of  "An  Act  to  make  an 
additional  article  of  war, ' '  approved  March  13,  1862,  and  also 
sections  9  and  10  of  the  Confiscation  Act,  approved  July  17, 
1862,  and  enjoining  their  enforcement  upon  all  persons  in  the 
military  and  naval  service,  the  Proclamation  concludes : 

And  I  do  hereby  enjoin  upon  and  order  all  persons  engaged  in  the 
military  and  naval  service  of  the  United  States  to  observe,  obey,  and 
enforce,  within  their  respective  spheres  of  service,  the  acts  and  sections 
above  recited.  And  the  Executive  will,  in  due  time,  recommend  that 
all  citizens  of  the  United  States,  who  shall  have  remained  loyal  thereto 
throughout  the  rebellion,  shall,  upon  the  restoration  of  the  constitu 
tional  relations  between  the  United  States  and  the  people,  if  that 
relation  shall  have  been  suspended  or  disturbed,  be  compensated  for 
all  losses  by  acts  of  the  United  States,  including  the  loss  of  slaves. 

To  comprehend  the  full  import  of  this  Proclamation  it 
should  be  mentioned  here  that,  ten  days  previous  to  its  issue, 
President  Lincoln  convened  the  Border  States  Delegation  in 
Congress  at  the  Executive  Mansion,  and  read  to  them  a  care 
ful  statement  of  reasons  for  proposing  and  recommending 
them  to  allow  the  Federal  Government  to  compensate  them  for 
their  slaves  and  put  an  end  forever  to  slavery  within  their 
borders.  The  policy  recommended  in  both  communications 
developed  a  formidable  opposition  in  Congress  when  it  met 
in  December  following. 


PEESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

OGDENSBUKGH,  Oct.  13,  1862. 
My  dear  Friend: 

We  have  been  passing  tediously  through  a  dark  and  bloody 
way.  The  end  of  the  road  could  not  be  seen  during  the  long, 
long  night— but  daylight  has  appeared.  The  President's  Proc 
lamation  of  Emancipation  and  confiscation  has  been  issued. 
This  determines  the  policy  of  the  government  and  sets  the  goal 
of  strife  and  battle— all  who  are  for  our.  country  and  our 
government  will  come  to  it.  There  is  much  still  to  be  done,  but 
we  have  now  grappled  with  our  difficulties  and  the  prolific 


GLADSTONE  AT  NEWCASTLE  559 

mother  of  them  and  shall  end  the  war  and  its  cause  together. 
The  chains  of  the  slave  and  the  weapons  of  the  traitor  will  be 
buried  in  the  same  grave. 

The  Trent  affair  was  a  cloud  that  is  past.  I  admired  Gen 
eral  Scott's  letter  and  saw  you  in  it  before  I  had  read  it 
through.  I  have  at  no  time  believed  we  should  have  foreign 
war  nor  have  I  at  any  time  believed  there  would  be  foreign 
intervention— certainly  not  while  we  have  half  a  million  of 
resolute  men  with  arms  in  their  hands  and  half  a  million  more 
with  arms  provided  and  their  names  upon  the  muster  rolls— 
and  all  our  loyal  people  ready  to  back  them  with  their  lives 
and  their  possessions.  This  is  our  security  against  interven 
tion  and  the  raising  of  the  Blockade.  I  would  have  closed  the 
ports  by  an  act  of  Congress  and  Proclamation,  declaring  the 
penalty  for  any  vessel  entering  or  leaving  any  port  in  a  state 
of  insurrection,  forfeiture  of  vessel  and  cargo,  to  be  seized  like 
a  smuggler  wherever  and  whenever  found  in  our  jurisdiction 
—but  the  Blockade  has  answered  the  purpose.  You  ask  about 
Cameron.  It  was  necessary  he  should  go  out  of  the  War  De 
partment.  The  President  became  satisfied  of  this  and  sent  him 
to  Russia. 

Yours  truly 


It  was  on  the  7th  of  October  of  this  year  (1862)  that  Mr. 
Gladstone  made  a  speech  at  the  town  hall  at  Newcastle  which 
obtained  for  him  more  notoriety  in  America  and  among  Amer 
icans  all  over  the  world  than  any -speech  he  had  ever  made.  It 
also  probably  subtracted  from  his  reputation  both  as  a  states 
man  and  as  a  prophet  as  much  as  any  speech  he  ever  made. 

Unhappily  [says  Mr.  Gladstone's  chosen  biographer] ,  the  slave  must 
still  go  in  the  triumphal  car  to  remind  us  of  the  fallibilities  of  men, 
and  here  the  conqueror  made  a  grave  mistake.  At  the  banquet  in  the 
town  hall  of  Newcastle  (October  7),  with  which  all  these  joyous  pro 
ceedings  had  begun,  Mr.  Gladstone  let  fall  a  sentence  about  the  Ameri 
can  war  of  which  he  was  destined  never  to  hear  the  last :  ' '  We  know 
quite  well  that  the  people  of  the  Northern  States  have  not  yet  drunk 
of  the  cup— they  are  still  trying  to  hold  it  far  from  their  lips— which 
all  the  rest  of  the  world  see  they  nevertheless  must  drink  of.  We  may 


560        KETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

have  our  own  opinions  about  slavery;  we  may  be  for  or  against  the 
South ;  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  Jefferson  Davis  and  other  leaders  of 
the  South  have  made  an  army;  they  are  making,  it  appears,  a  navy; 
and  they  have  made  what  is  more  than  either,  they  have  made  a 
nation. ' ' 

Here  the  speaker  was  forgetful  of  a  wholesome  saying  of  his  own, 
that ' '  a  man  who  speaks  in  public  ought  to  know,  besides  his  own  mean 
ing,  the  meaning  which  others  will  attach  to  his  words."  The  sensa 
tion  was  immediate  and  profound.  All  the  world  took  so  pointed  an 
utterance  to  mean  that  the  Government  was  about  to  recognize  the 
independence  of  the  South.  The  cotton  men  were  thrown  into  a 
position  of  doubt  and  uncertainty  that  still  further  disturbed  their 
trade.  Orders  for  cotton  were  countermanded,  and  the  supply  of  the 
precious  material  for  a  moment  threatened  to  become  worse  than  ever. 
Cobden  and  Bright  were  twitted  with  the  lapse  of  their  favorite  from 
a  central  article  of  their  own  creed  and  commandments.  Louis  Blanc, 
then  in  exile  in  London,  describing  the  feeling  of  the  country,  compares 
the  sympathy  for  the  North  to  a  dam  and  the  sympathy  for  the  South  to 
a  torrent,  and  says  he  fears  that  Gladstone  at  Newcastle  had  yielded 
to  the  temptation  of  courting  popularity.  The  American  Minister 
dropped  a  hint  about  passports. 

To  the  numerous  correspondents  who  complained  of  his  language 
Mr.  Gladstone  framed  a  form  of  reply,  disclaiming  responsibility  for 
all  the  various  inferences  that  people  chose  to  draw  from  his  lan 
guage.1  "And  generally,"  his  secretary  concluded,  in  phrases  that 
justly  provoked  plain  men  to  wrath,  "Mr.  Gladstone  desires  me  to 
remark  that  to  form  opinions  upon  questions  of  policy,  to  announce 
them  to  the  world,  and  to  take  or  to  be  a  party  to  taking  any  of  the 
steps  necessary  for  giving  them  effect,  are  matters  which,  though  con 
nected  together,  are  in  themselves  distinct,  and  which  may  be  sepa 
rated  by  intervals  of  time  longer  or  shorter  according  to  the  particular 
circumstances  of  the  case."  Mr.  Gladstone  sent  a  copy  of  this  enig 
matical  response  to  the  Foreign  Secretary,  "who  was  far  too  acute 
not  to  perceive  all  the  mischief  and  the  peril,  but  had  his  full  share 
of  that  generosity  of  our  public  life  that  prevents  a  Minister  from 
bearing  too  hardly  on  a  colleague  who  has  got  the  boat  and  its  crew 
into  a  scrape."  Lord  Russell  replied  from  Walmer  (October  20) :  "I 
have  forwarded  to  your  private  secretary  your  very  proper  answer  to 
your  very  impertinent  correspondent.  Still,  you  must  allow  me  to  say 
that  I  think  you  went  beyond  the  latitude  which  all  speakers  must  be 

*For  evidence  of  the  inadequacy  and  disingenuousness  of  Mr.  Gladstone's 
post-mortem  defence  of  this  speech,  the  reader  is  respectfully  referred  to  a 
brochure  which  I  printed  in  1905  and  shortly  after  Mr.  Morley's  biography  of 
Gladstone  appeared.  To  that  paper,  which  was  privately  printed,  I  shall  have 
occasion  to  refer  again  when  my  theme  takes  on  a  new  phase  in  1865. 


GLADSTONE'S  POST-OBIT  561 

allowed,  when  you  said  that  Jeff.  Davis  had  made  a  nation.  Kecog- 
nition  would  seem  to  follow,  and  for  that  step  I  think  the  Cabinet  is 
not  prepared.  However,  we  shall  soon  meet  to  discuss  this  very  topic. ' ' 
A  week  after  the  deliverance  at  Newcastle,  Cornwall  Lewis,  at  Lord 
Palmerston's  request,  put  things  right  in  a  speech  at  Hereford. 
The  Southern  States,  he  said,  had  not  de  facto  established  their  inde 
pendence  and  were  not  entitled  to  recognition  on  any  accepted  prin 
ciples  of  public  law. 

This  fatal  speech  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  coming  from  a  Cabinet 
Minister  just  after  the  President's  Proclamation  of  Emancipa 
tion  and  the  triumph  of  the  Federal  arms  at  Antietam,  was 
almost  equivalent,  in  the  estimation  of  the  whole  civilized 
world,  to  a  declaration  of  the  Government's  intention  to  ac 
knowledge  the  independence  of  the  Confederate  States.  In 
making  that  speech  Mr.  Gladstone  was  merely  breathing  the 
political  atmosphere  in  which  he  lived,  covetous  of  a  prophet's 
fame  and  little  dreaming  for  the  moment  of  the  perils  of 
prophesying  without  possessing  the  gift. 

He  left  a  pitiful  confession  of  his  ignorance  and  his  indis 
cretion,  but,  with  his  constitutional  wariness,  it  did  not  see  the 
light  of  day  until  it  appeared  in  the  pages  of  Mr.  Morley's 
biography  of  him  in  the  fall  of  1903. 


SLIDELL  TO  BENJAMIN 

PARIS,  20th  October,  1862. 
Sir: 

My  last  was  of  October  9th.  I  had  hoped  before  this  to  have  had  it 
in  my  power  to  communicate  something  definite  as  to  the  Emperor's 
intentions  respecting  our  affairs  but  new  complications  in  the  Italian 
question  have  entirely  absorbed  the  attention  of  the  Government.  M. 
Thouvenel  has  resigned  and  has  been  succeeded  by  M.  Drouyn  de 
Lhuys.  For  two  or  three  days,  a  general  disruption  of  the  Cabinet 
was  imminent.  Messrs,  de  Persigny  and  Fould  tendered  their  resig 
nations,  which  if  accepted  would  have  been  followed  by  two  or  three 
others.  They  were  however  induced  to  withdraw  them  by  the  earnest 
appeal  of  the  Emperor  and  at  present  it  seems  probable  that  no 
further  change  will  take  place  in  the  ministry. 


562        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Since  my  last  I  have  had  reason  to  be  less  hopeful  of  early  joint 
recognition  by  France  and  England.  Some  days  past  I  learned  from 
an  English  friend  that  Lord  Cowley  (the  British  Ambassador)  de 
clared  most  emphatically  that  his  Government  had  no  official  knowl 
edge  of  the  Emperor's  views  on  the  subject  of  recognition— that  he 
had  spoken,  it  was  true,  very  freely  to  various  persons  of  his  warm 
sympathies  for  the  South  but  that  such  conversations  had  no  public 
significance  and  until  he  gave  them  an  official  form  her  Majesty's 
Ministers  would  be  presumed  to  be  ignorant  of  them.  I  have  entire  reli 
ance  on  the  truthfulness  of  the  gentleman  who  gave  me  this  informa 
tion  coming  directly  to  him  from  Lord  Cowley.  On  enquiring  at  the 
Affaires  Strangers  I  was  informed  by  the  friend  to  whom  I  have 
alluded  in  previous  despatches,  that  M.  Thouvenel  expressed  great 
surprise  at  Lord  Cowley 's  assertion,  saying  that  it  had  to  him  the 
appearance  of  a  "mauvaise  plaisanterie" ;  that  there  had  been  between 
the  two  governments  "des  pourparlers  tres  reels"  on  the  subject  of 
American  Affairs;  that  England  was  not  as  well  disposed  to  act  as 
the  Government  of  the  Emperor;  that  it  was  from  London  that  a 
communication  was  expected  and  that  the  object  of  France  was  to 
bring  about  an  armistice  as  a  necessary  preliminary  to  peace.  That 
Lord  Lyons  was  decidedly  opposed  to  any  action  until  the  result  of 
the  Northern  elections  should  have  been  ascertained,  and  that  his 
views  would  probably  prevail  in  the  Cabinet  Council,  shortly  to  be 
held,  when  the  tenor  of  the  instructions  to  be  given  him  would  be 
decided.  The  discrepancy  between  the  statements  of  Lord  Cowley 
and  M.  Thouvenel  is  such,  that  giving,  as  I  do,  full  credence  to  the 
latter,  I  can  only  suppose  that  Lord  Cowley  is  not  kept  informed  by 
his  Government  or  that  he  deliberately  misrepresents  the  position  of 
affairs,  on  this  alternative  I  do  not  venture  to  express  an  opinion. 

M.  Drouyn  de  Lhuys  has  always  been  understood  to  be  very  favor 
ably  disposed  towards  our  cause. 
I  have  the  honor,  &c. 


SEWARD  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  Oct.  27,  1862. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

Your  note  of  the  10th  is  received.    So  far  you  are  safe,  for 
you  have  usurped  with  discretion  and  with  wisdom.    You  were 


OUR  ENCOURAGEMENT  OF  IMMIGRATION     563 

right  in  publishing  both  the  Circulars.  But  you  must  remem 
ber  that  you  act  at  your  peril  in  such  cases.  When  you  see  that 
our  too  fast  friend  Canisius l  at  last  has  lost  his  head,  you  will 
comprehend. 

Ever  (however)  faithfully  yours 


The  exigencies  of  the  war  and  the  certainty  of  prompt  and 
remunerative  employment  were  speedily  availed  of  by  the 
transatlantic  steamship  companies  to  stimulate  emigration  to 
our  shores  from  all  parts  of  Europe.  Their  agencies  were 
organized  in  every  city  of  importance,  and  the  chief  induce 
ment—and  it  was  sufficient  to  hold  out  to  the  poorly  fed  class 
of  the  population  of  Europe— was  found  in  a  circular  which 
Mr.  Seward  sent  to  me,  which  I  caused  to  be  printed  in  some 
of  the  leading  journals  on  the  Continent.  This  circular  de 
serves  a  place  in  this  record  if  for  no  other  reason  than  the 
light  it  throws  upon  the  mysterious  repletion  of  our  army  dur 
ing  the  four  years  of  war,  while  it  was  notoriously  being  so 
fearfully  depleted  by  firearms,  disease  and  desertion.  I  had 
some  difficulty  at  first  in  procuring  permission  from  the  French 
Government  to  issue  this  circular,  and  I  am  quite  sure  the  op 
position  was  not  withdrawn  through  any  sympathy  of  the  Im 
perial  Government  with  the  Union  cause. 

It  is  to  the  issue  of  this  circular  in  France  without  any 
authority  from  Washington  that  Mr.  Seward  refers  as  a  usur 
pation. 

Mr.  Seward  ?s  circular  on  emigration  was  addressed  to  all 
our  diplomatic  representatives.  It  directed  their  attention  to 
"what  deserves  to  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  important 
steps  ever  taken  by  any  government  toward  a  practical  recog 
nition  of  the  universal  brotherhood  of  nations.  The  United 
States  Government  are  the  proprietors  of  a  public  domain 
covering  a  surface  of  more  than  2,000,000  miles  square  (5,176,- 
000  kilometres),  distributed  through  portions  of  16  States  and 

1  The  Russian  Ambassador  to  Washington,  whom  for  some  indiscreet  public 
utterances  the  Czar  was  requested  to  recall. 


564        EETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

sufficient  in  extent  for  the  creation  of  30  new  States  each  as 
large  as  the  State  of  Ohio.  By  the  law  adopted  in  1861  to 
which  this  circular  refers,  called  the  '  Homestead  Act, '  a  farm 
consisting  of  160  acres  is  given  to  every  person,  irrespective  of 
his  nationality  or  his  political  and  religious  opinions,  who  will 
accept  and  occupy  it  for  five  years,  on  the  simple  payment  of 
the  expenses  of  the  conveyance,  which  are  limited  to  50  francs. ' ' 

In  years  that  are  past  the  Federal  Government  at  Wash 
ington  has  also  consecrated  more  than  fifty  millions  of  acres  of 
the  public  domain  to  the  foundation  and  permanent  support 
of  free  schools.  Most  of  these  concessions  have  been  made 
to  States  in  which  lie  the  larger  part  of  the  public  lands  so 
liberally  devoted  to  the  relief  of  the  homeless  poor  of  all  na 
tions.  In  due  time  the  revenues  from  these  lands  must  place 
the  educational  system  of  America  upon  a  most  munificent 
foundation. 

If  the  United  States  have  involved  the  industrious  poor  of 
the  Old  World  in  some  of  the  unhappy  consequences  of  their 
excusable  efforts  to  maintain  their  national  existence,  it  must  be 
said  for  them  that,  in  the  appropriation  to  which  this  circular 
invites  attention,  they  have  made  the  most  liberal  reparation. 


BENJAMIN  TO  MASON 

DEPARTMENT  OF  STATE,  RICHMOND, 

28th  October,  1862. 
Sir: 

It  is  gratifying  to  perceive  that  you  had,  as  was  confidently  antici 
pated,  reviewed  your  impressions,  and  determined  not  to  withdraw 
from  London  without  the  previous  instructions  of  the  President.  Your 
correspondence  with  Earl  Russell  shows  with  what  scant  courtesy  you 
have  been  treated,  and  exhibits  a  marked  contrast  between  the  conduct 
of  the  English  and  French  statesmen  now  in  office  in  the  intercourse 
with  foreign  agents  eminently  discreditable  to  the  former.  It  is  lam 
entable  that  at  this  late  period  in  the  nineteenth  century  a  nation  so 
enlightened  as  Great  Britain  should  have  failed  yet  to  discover  that  a 
principal  cause  of  dislike  and  hatred  towards  England,  of  which 


THE   CRISIS  OF  THE    INSURRECTION  565 

complaints  are  rife  in  her  Parliament  and  in  her  press,  is  the  offensive 
arrogance  of  some  of  her  public  men.  The  contrast  is  striking  between 
the  polished  courtesy  of  M.  Thouvenel1  and  the  rude  incivility  of 
Earl  Russell.  Your  determination  to  submit  to  the  annoyances  in  the 
service  of  your  country  and  to  overlook  personal  slights  while  hope 
remains  that  your  continued  presence  in  England  may  benefit  our 
cause,  cannot  fail  to  meet  the  warm  approval  of  your  government.  I 
refrain  however  from  further  comments  on  the  contents  of  your 
despatches  till  the  attention  of  the  President  (now  concentrated  on 
efforts  to  repair  the  ill  effects  of  the  failure  of  the  Kentucky  cam 
paign)  can  be  directed  to  your  correspondence  with  Earl  Russell. 
I  am,  sir, 

Your  obedient  servant 


THE  CRISIS  OF  THE  INSURRECTION 

As  already  intimated,  the  two  men  who  were  sent  abroad  to 
negotiate  European  alliances  for  the  Confederate  States,  more 
than  any  other  two  men  in  our  Eepublic,  incarnated  everything 
that  was  most  intolerant,  aggressive  and  offensive  in  the  institu 
tion  of  slavery.  With  them  slavery  was  not  a  disorderly  social 
condition,  to  be  tolerated  only  for  its  incidental  conveniences, 
or  for  the  grave  inconveniences  of  exterminating  it,  but  an 
institution  to  be  admired,  cultivated  and  propagated  for  its 
intrinsic  merits  and  fitness.  The  fame  of  their  opinions  had 
gone  before  them  all  over  the  world.  As  a  matter  of  course, 
they  had  not  been  long  in  Europe  before  they  were  brought  to 
book.  Mr.  Mason  got  his  first  lesson  at  a  dinner  at  Lord 
Donoughmore  's,  a  thorough-paced  old  Tory  and  ready  for 
anything  that  would  contribute  to  bring  the  American  Eepub- 

1  It  is  a  curious  coincidence  that  on  the  very  day  while  Benjamin  was  com 
mending  to  Mason  the  polished  courtesy  of  M.  Thouvenel,  Slidell  in  Paris  was 
writing  to  Benjamin  an  account  of  the  first  interview  with  Drouyn  de  Lhuys 
and  saying:  "After  the  first  interchange  of  courtesies,  I  said  that  I  had  been 
pleased  to  hear  from  various  quarters  that  I  should  not  have  to  combat  with 
him  the  adverse  sentiments  that  had  been  attributed  to  his  predecessor  in  the 
Department  of  Foreign  Affairs  (M.  Thouvenel),  with  what  degree  of  truth  I 
did  not  permit  myself  to  appreciate." 


566       BETKOSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

lie  to  grief.  Mason's  own  account  of  this  lesson  is  given  in  the 
following  confidential  note  to  his  chief.  The  sentiments  of  the 
hard-hearted  old  peer  were  so  shockingly  philanthropical  that 
Mason  made  his  communication  "unofficial,"  doubting  the 
propriety  of  allowing  such  heresies  to  go  upon  the  files  of  the 
Confederate  Department  of  State.  It  is,  however,  none 
the  less  appropriate  here. 


MASON  TO  BENJAMIN 

Unofficial 

24,  UPPER  SEYMOUR  STREET,  PORTMAN  SQUARE, 

LONDON,  November  4,  1862. 
Dear  Sir: 

The  contents  of  this  note,  I  have  thought,  had  better  be  unofficial, 
and  thus  not  go  on  the  files  of  the  Department,  unless  you  should 
think  otherwise,  and  yet  the  matter,  it  seems  to  me,  should  at  once  be 
brought  under  the  consideration  of  the  President,  that  we  may  be 
ready  when  the  time  arrives. 

I  have  the  strongest  reason  to  believe,  when,  after  recognition,  we 
shall  come  to  the  negotiation  of  the  ordinary  treaty  of  "Amity  and 
Commerce, ' '  this  government  will  require  as  a  sine  qua  non,  the  intro 
duction  of  a  clause  stipulating  against  the  African  Slave  Trade.  Al 
though  I  well  knew  the  pertinacity  of  England  on  that  subject,  yet 
I  had  supposed  that  the  voluntary  act  of  the  Confederate  States 
Government,  inhibiting  this  trade  by  the  enactment  of  the  constitution 
when  the  Government  was  first  established,  would  have  satisfied  Eng 
land  to  be  passive  at  least,  in  her  future  intercourse  with  us.  I  have 
now  great  reason  to  apprehend  the  contrary. 

Some  few  days  since,  I  dined  with  Lord  Donoughmore,  who  was 
President  of  the  Board  of  Trade  during  the  late  Derby  Administra 
tion,  and  will  hold  the  same,  or  a  higher  office,  should  that  party  again 
come  into  power:  a  very  intelligent  gentleman,  and  a  warm  and 
earnest  friend  of  the  South.  In  the  course  of  conversation,  after 
dinner,  the  subject  came  up  incidentally,  while  we  were  alone,  and  he 
said  I  might  be  satisfied  that  Lord  Palmerston  would  not  enter  into 
a  treaty  with  us,  unless  we  agreed  in  such  treaty  not  to  permit  the 


THE   CRISIS  OF  THE    INSURRECTION  567 

African  Slave  Trade.  I  expressed  my  surprise  at  it,  referring  to  the 
fact,  that  we  had  voluntarily  admitted  that  prohibition  into  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  Confederate  States,  thereby  taking  stronger  ground 
against  the  slave  trade  than  had  ever  been  taken  by  the  United  States, 
that  in  the  latter  it  was  only  prohibited  by  law ;  whilst  in  the  former, 
not  only  was  the  power  withheld  from  Congress,  but  the  Legislative 
branch  of  the  Government  was  required  to  pass  such  laws  as  would 
effectually  prevent  it. 

He  said  that  was  all  well  understood,  but  that  such  was  the  senti 
ment  of  England  on  this  subject,  that  no  Minister  could  hold  his  place 
for  a  day,  who  should  negotiate  a  Treaty  with  any  power  not  contain 
ing  such  a  clause ;  nor  could  any  House  of  Commons  be  found,  which 
would  sustain  a  Minister  thus  delinquent,  and  he  referred  to  the  fact, 
(as  he  alleged  it  to  be,)  that  in  every  existing  Treaty  with  England 
that  prohibition  was  contained.  He  said  further,  that  he  did  not  mean 
to  express  his  individual  opinion,  but  that  he  was  equally  satisfied, 
should  the  Palmerston  Ministry  go  out,  and  the  Tories  come  in,  such 
would  likewise  be  their  necessary  policy;  and  he  added  that  he  was 
well  assured  that  England  and  France  would  be  in  accord  on  that 
subject. 

I  told  him,  in  reply,  that  I  feared  this  would  form  a  formidable 
obstacle,  if  persisted  in,  to  any  Treaty,  that  he  must  be  aware  on  all 
questions  affecting  African  servitude,  our  government  was  naturally 
and  necessarily  sensitive,  when  presented  by  any  foreign  Power.  We 
had  learned  from  abundant  experience  that  the  Anti-slavery  senti 
ment  was  always  aggressive;  that  this  condition  of  society  was  one 
with  which,  in  our  opinion,  the  destinies  of  the  South  were  indissolubly 
connected ;  that  as  regarded  foreign  Powers,  it  was  with  us  a  question 
purely  domestic,  with  which  our  safety  required  that  none  such 
should,  in  any  manner,  interfere;  that,  of  course,  I  had  no  special 
instructions  on  the  subject,  but  I  thought  I  knew  both  the  views  of 
our  Government  and  people;  and  that  (to  express  it  in  no  stronger 
term)  it  would  be  a  most  unfortunate  thing  if  England  should  make 
such  a  stipulation  a  sine  qua  non  to  a  treaty.  I  said,  further,  that  I 
presumed  it  might  be  averted,  by  recognizing  mutually  the  fact,  that 
such  a  stipulation  was  not  properly  germane  to  a  treaty  purely  com 
mercial  ;  and  thus  to  be  laid  over  as  a  subject  for  future  negotiations, 
if  pressed.  He  still  maintained  as  his  belief,  that  no  matter  who  might 
be  in  power,  it  would  be  insisted  on,  in  the  first  treaty  to  be  formed. 

A  few  days  afterwards,  Mr.  Seymour  Fitzgerald,  passing  through 
town,  came  to  see  me.  I  had  known  him  very  well,  and  during  the 
late  session  of  Parliament  had  seen  a  good  deal  of  him.  He  is  a  man 
of  ability  and  influence,  was  Under-Secretary  for  Foreign  Affairs  in 
the  Derby  Administration,  and  will  take  the  place  of  Lord  Russell,  it 


568        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

is  supposed,  should  the  Conservatives  again  come  into  power,  and  he, 
too,  is  an  earnest  and  sincere  friend  to  our  cause. 

I  told  him  of  my  conversation  with  Lord  Donoughmore,  and  of  my 
surprise  at  the  opinion  he  entertained ;  I  regret  to  say  that  Mr.  Fitz 
gerald  coincided  fully  with  Lord  D.  in  these  opinions,  not  as  his  own, 
but  as  those  which  must  govern  any  Ministry  in  England. 

"We  shall,  therefore,  have  this  question  to  meet,  I  take  for  granted, 
at  the  time,  and  in  the  manner  suggested. 

I  do  not  ask  for  any  definite  instructions  in  regard  to  it,  but  only 
bring  it  thus,  unofficially,  to  the  notice  of  the  President  and  yourself. 

Very  respectfully,  &c. 


At  the  very  time  that  Lord  Donoughmore  was  saying 
6 '  Check  "  to  the  slavery  apostolate  in  London,  Jefferson  Davis 
was  receiving  what  should  have  been  regarded  as  a  more  im 
pressive  warning  from  a  source  that  could  not  be  suspected  of 
sentimentalism.  Among  the  agents  sent  out  to  Europe  at  the 
beginning  of  the  war  was  "William  L.  Yancey  of  Alabama,  who 
had  sought  and  fairly  won  the  reputation  of  being  the  cham 
pion  fire-eater  of  the  country,  and  who  contributed  tbe  only 
piece  of  pro-slavery  rhetoric  that  seems  likely  to  survive  the 
Eebellion,  in  proclaiming  at  its  beginning  the  necessity  of 
"firing  the  Southern  heart. "  The  object  of  his  mission  to 
Europe,  in  conjunction  with  Dudley  Mann,  was  to  take  advan 
tage  of  the  reverse  sustained  by  the  Union  army  at  Bull  Eun  to 
secure  the  prompt  recognition  of  the  Confederacy  by  England 
and  France.  He  returned  in  a  few  months,  running  the  block 
ade  at  Sabine  Pass.  i '  When  he  arrived  in  New  Orleans, ' '  said 
my  informant,  who  saw  him  and  from  whom  I  had  the  facts  I 
am  about  to  recite,  "he  was  the  most  broken-up,  demoralized 
and  wretched-looking  man  I  ever  saw."  He  went  to  the  St. 
Charles  Hotel,  then  kept  by  Mr.  Hildreth,  afterwards  manager 
of  the  New  York  Hotel,  and  immediately  sent  for  William  E. 
Stark  and  Pierre  Soule.  The  latter  from  being  a  noisy  Union 
ist  had  been  persuaded,  by  his  appointment  to  the  office  of 
Provost  Marshal,  to  fly  the  colors  of  the  Confederacy.  To 
escape  observation  and  interruption,  Yancey,  Hildreth,  Stark 
and  Soule  then  went  out  to  a  restaurant  to  dine.  While  absent 


YANCEY  RETURNS  FROM  ENGLAND     569 

it  leaked  out  in  some  way  that  Yancey  had  returned  and  was  at 
the  St.  Charles,  so  that  when  the  party  returned  they  found 
the  large  domed  reception-hall  of  the  hotel  thronged  with 
people,  who  no  sooner  recognized  Yancey  than  they  called 
upon  him  to  address  them.  He  reluctantly  mounted  the  struc 
ture  which  occupied  the  centre  of  the  hall  under  the  dome, 
1 1  appearing  to  be  the  very  embodiment  of  disappointment  and 
despair/'  He  said  in  substance  that  he  did  not  bring  them 
glad  tidings  from  over  the  sea;  that  Queen  Victoria  was 
against  them  and  that  Prince  Albert  was  against  them.  ' '  Glad 
stone  We  can  manage,"  he  said,  "but  the  feeling  against  sla 
very  in  England  is  so  strong  that  no  public  man  there  dares 
extend  a  hand  to  help  us.  We  have  got  to  fight  the  Washing 
ton  Government  alone.  There  is  no  government  in  Europe 
that  dares  help  us  in  a  struggle  which  can  be  suspected  of 
having  for  its  result,  directly  or  indirectly,  the  fortification  or 
perpetuation  of  slavery.  Of  that  I  am  certain." 

In  a  day  or  two  Yancey  left  for  Eichmond,  where  he  is  pre 
sumed  to  have  made  substantially  the  same  report  to  the 
Confederate  authorities.  He  died  in  about  ten  days  after  his 
arrival.  His  information,  which  deserved  to  be  heeded,  and  if 
heeded  would  have  led  to  negotiations  which  would  promptly 
have  caused  a  termination  of  the  war,  had  about  as  much  effect 
upon  the  lunatics  at  Eichmond  as  reading  the  Eiot  Act  or  the 
Ten  Commandments  would  have  upon  a  pack  of  wolves.  They 
knew  not  the  time  of  their  visitation. 


PRESTON  KING  TO  BIGELOW 

OGDENSBURGH,  Nov.  7,  1862. 
Dear  Friend: 

I  have  been  very  much  disappointed  in  the  results  of  the 
Elections— but  my  faith  in  the  suppression  of  the  Eebellion, 
the  preservation  of  our  country  and  the  extinction  of  slavery 
is  firm  and  strong  as  ever— I  do  not  know  as  I  correctly  com 
prehend  all  the  causes  of  the  results  of  the  Elections  and  I  am 


570        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

not  quite  certain  that  I  comprehend  the  results  themselves. 
But  the  results  must  develop  themselves  and  exhibit  their  real 
character  and  to  some  extent  their  causes  also.  Opinions  for 
and  against  slavery,  and  opinions  for  and  against  thorough 
war  to  conquer  the  insurgents  by  force  of  arms,  have  in 
fluenced  most  votes  and  while  the  bad  motive  has  been  alto 
gether  in  one  direction  the  good  motive  has  been  distracted 
and  many  have  looked  to  the  democrats  for  more  vigor  and 
energy  in  pushing  the  war.  Other  causes,  some  open  and  some 
not  very  well  understood,  have  decided  a  great  many  votes. 
You  will  see  all  the  causes  and  more  too  in  the  newspapers.  I 
drew  my  opinions  as  to  results  from  my  own  feelings  and  the 
sentiment  around  me  at  home— but  it  is  useless  to  assign  rea 
sons—our  opponents  of  all  shades  of  opinion  combined  and 
have  carried  the  elections.1  How  long  and  through  what  trials 
we  are  to  pass  God  only  knows,  but  we  must  go  through  them 
with  courage.  You  are  at  a  distance,  the  atmosphere  that 
surrounds  us  does  not  touch  you.  I  want  you  to  write  me  a 
good  straightforward  letter  telling  me  what  you  think— I  shall 
be  glad  if  you  see  sunshine  and  I  shall  not  be  discouraged  if 
you  do  not.  The  clouds  may  look  heavier  to  you  than  they 
really  are.  We  have  but  one  thing  to  do— we  must  conquer  the 
rebels— we  must  conquer  them  or  perish.  The  only  alter 
natives  for  our  government  are  victory  or  death;  anything 
short  of  victory  is  so  full  of  disaster  that  it  is  defeat  or  a  mere 
postponement  of  the  trial  for  the  life  of  our  system  of  govern 
ment—a  trial  which  it  seems  to  me  can  only  be  decided  by  the 
sword  now.  Morgan  declined.  He  saw  the  convention,  com 
posed  as  it  was,  desired  the  contest  we  have  had  in  this  state— 
or  I  presume  he  saw  it— the  convention  expected  success  in  the 
election— the  condition  required  that  New  York  should  stand 
by  the  government,  but  we  should  never  despair.  Sad  as  the 
result  is,  vigor,  energy,  action  on  the  part  of  the  government 
will  be  sustained  and  will  carry  us  through. 

Yours  truly 


1  Horatio  Seymour  was  elected  Governor  of  New  York.    New  Jersey  was 
also  carried  by  the  Democrats. 


GIBSON  APOLOGIZES  571 


JOHN  BEIGHT  TO  BIGELOW 

Private 

EOCHDALE,  Nov.  17,  1862. 
My  dear  Mr.  Bigelow: 

I  am  much  obliged  to  you  for  your  letter  and  for  the  en 
closure—both  are  very  interesting.  I  sent  your  letter  to  my 
friend  Mr.  Gibson  and  he  says : '  '  Lord  John  (Lord  Eussell)  pro 
fesses  to  be  most  anxious  that  the  foreign  enlistment  act  should 
be  strictly  enforced.  In  the  case  of  the  Alabama,1  it  seems 
the  solicitors  of  the  Customs  thought  she  could  not  be  legally 
detained,  and  told  the  Collector  of  Customs  at  Liverpool,  who 
is  the  executive  in  such  matters,  that  he  was  not  authorized  to 
detain  her.  When  the  Foreign  Office  heard  the  particulars, 
and  had  taken  legal  advice,  I  believe  they  telegraphed  at  once, 
but  the  ship  had  been  gone  an  hour. ' '  I  hope  with  regard  to 
any  other  case  the  Foreign  Office  may  be  more  successful— but 
I  suspect  your  people  here,  the  Consul  and  Minister,  lost  time 
in  dealing  with  Custom  House  officers  instead  of  going  at  once 
to  the  Foreign  Office ;  this,  however,  may  not  be  so.  Mr.  Gibson 
says,  speaking  of  the  French  proposition,  "I  can't  understand 
even  the  sense  of  such  a  proposal,  unless  it  is  intended  to  go 
further." 

I  am  much  pleased  with  the  extract  from  Mr.  Chase 's  letter, 
and  hope  his  expectations  may  be  realized.  The  long  letter 
from  your  friend  is  very  interesting.  I  should  think  his  views 
very  sound  for  the  most  part. 

The  elections  have  gone  sadly  against  your  party.  I  at 
tribute  much  of  this  to  the  want  of  success  which  has  attended 
the  operations  of  the  government.  Judging  from  this  distance 
—there  is  a  want  of  unity  and  capacity  in  your  administration, 
which,  if  not  fatal  to  success,  is  very  perilous  to  your  cause, 
and  this  incapacity  is  not  compensated  for  by  the  qualities  of 
your  military  leaders.  The  other  party  might  have  done  no 

1  The  Oreto,  afterwards  the  Florida,  and  the  Alabama  were  built  at  Liver 
pool.  The  Oreto  sailed  under  the  British  flag  to  Mobile  Bay,  where  she  got 
her  Confederate  commission  and  changed  her  name.  The  Alabama  was 
manned  by  British  sailors  and  furnished  with  British  guns. 


572        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

more  and  no  better— but  those  in  power  must  naturally  and 
justly  suffer  from  whatever  of  ill  success  attends  their  policy 
and  operations. 

I  will  hope  that  the  Administration  will  still  be  sustained  by 
a  firm  majority  in  Congress,  and  that  a  greater  success  may 
give  it  more  popularity.  The  1st  January  is  near  at  hand- 
in  six  weeks  the  '  i  3  months '  fuse ' '  will  have  burnt  out,  and  the 
negro  will  be  free  wherever  northern  forces  can  command  and 
secure  it  for  him.  That  date  once  come  and  gone,  I  think  there 
is  no  power  that  can  recall  the  proclamation,— unless  the  con 
spirators  should  again  get  hold  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  de 
clare  it  illegal  and  beyond  the  constitution.  I  wish  the  1st  of 
January  to  be  here,  and  the  freedom  of  the  Slaves  declared 
from  Washington.  This  will  make  it  impossible  for  England 
to  interfere  for  the  South,  for  we  are  not,  I  hope,  degraded 
enough  to  undertake  to  restore  three  and  one  half  millions  of 
negroes  to  slavery. 

There  is  a  clever  and  thoughtful  article  in  the  London  Spec- 
tator  of  Saturday  last  (15th)  on  the  proposed  mediation  and 
armistice.  If  you  look  in  at  Galignani's— it  is  worth  your 
reading.  Generally  I  think  the  English,  public  approve  of  the 
refusal  of  our  government  to  join  the  silly  proposition  of  the 
French,1  and  I  do  not  find  any  disposition  to  get  into  mischief 
with  you.  If  you  get  hold  of  the  ports  and  drive  the  conspir 
ators  from  Eichmond,  all  our  people  will  begin  to  see  their 
interest  in  your  success,  and  will  wish  it  to  be  speedy. 

I  am  grieved  to  see  the  death  of  General  Mitchell  at  Beau 
fort — he  made  a  beautiful  speech  to  the  negroes  the  other  day. 
I  think  much  may  be  done  down  there  by  an  earnest  and 
prudent  man,  just  and  liberal  to  the  blacks. 

I  am  always  glad  to  hear  from  you,  and  I  keep  the  faith  in 
spite  of  some  facts  which  shake  the  weak  from  their  moorings. 

Ever  yours  sincerely 


[P.  S.]  I  see  a  partial  confirmation  of  the  taking  of  Mobile 
in  the  news  of  Saturday. 

1  The  Emperor's  proposition  for  common  mediation  made  to  the  courts  of 
Russia  and  England  on  the  30th  of  October. 


THE  EMPEROR'S  LIFE   THREATENED  573 


BIGELOW  TO  SEWARD 

Private  &  Confidential 

PABIS,  Nov.  21,  1862. 
Dear  Sir: 

Dr.  Evans  will  probably  communicate  to  you  an  account  of 
an  interview  he  has  recently  had  with  the  Emperor  at  Com- 
piegne,  in  which  American  affairs  were  the  leading  topic  of 
conversation.  You  will  observe  that  the  Doctor  did  most  of 
the  talking,  but  it  is  pretty  clear  that  the  Emperor  wished  him 
to  receive  and  communicate  the  impression  that  the  imperial 
Government  does  not  wish  to  be  suspected  of  entertaining  un 
friendly  feelings  against  the  United  States  at  present.  I 
ought  to  advise  you,  if  you  are  not  aware  of  it,  that  it  some 
times  happens  when  the  crowned  heads  of  Europe  wish  to 
communicate  with  one  another  without  any  responsibility  they 
send  for  Evans  to  fix  their  teeth.  As  you  are  not  likely  to  send 
so  far  for  a  dentist  I  need  only  add  that  the  messages  of  this 
sort,  which  he  bears,  are  always  communicated  to  him  by  word 
of  mouth  and  in  the  presence  of  no  witnesses.  When  that  is 
not  practicable  he  is  not  employed.  In  spite  of  what  the 
Emperor  is  reported  to  have  said  to  the  Doctor,  I  do  not  feel 
assured  that  he  is  strong  enough  to  resist  the  pressure  upon 
him.  He  has  lost  ground  in  France  of  late  quite  rapidly  and 
the  evidences  of  po'pular  discontent  were  never  more  nu 
merous.  It  is  generally  believed  that  two  distinct  plots  for  his 
assassination  have  been  discovered  within  a  fortnight,  one  to 
have  matured  on  the  15th,  the  day  originally  proposed  for  the 
opening  of  the  new  boulevard  Eugenie,  and  the  other  more 
recently  at  Compiegne.  It  is  certain  that  the  opening  of  the 
boulevard  was  postponed  until  the  7th  of  December,  5  days 
after  the  10th  anniversary  of  the  Coup  d'etat.  It  has  been 
predicted  and  accepted  as  a  prophecy  by  multitudes,  that  the 
Emperor  would  not  survive  that  anniversary.  He  is  said  to  be 
himself  a  very  superstitious  man  and  the  change  from  the  15th 
of  November  to  the  7th  December  is  now  believed  to  be  an 
effort  on  his  part  to  defy  fate. 


574        RETKOSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

There  was  another  serious  manifestation  against  the  Em 
peror  the  other  day  at  the  ficole  de  Medecine.  M.  Rarcy,  the 
Emperor's  physician,  has  been  recently  appointed  Doyen  or 
presiding  officer  of  the  faculty  of  medicine  of  Paris  and  as 
such  it  became  his  duty  to  deliver  a  discourse  at  the  opening 
of  the  course  last  week.  Dr.  Rarcy  never  having  been  a  pro 
fessor,  his  appointment  to  this  place  was  looked  upon  by  the 
other  professors  as  an  ungracious  piece  of  favoritism  on  the 
part  of  the  Emperor  and  the  consequence  was  that  on  opening 
the  doors  of  the  Lecture  room,  there  were  about  10,000  stu 
dents  in  attendance,  who  made  such  a  noise,  when  the  Dr. 
entered,  hissed  and  interrupted  him  so  much,  that  he  was 
obliged  to  abandon  the  pulpit.  Before  the  evening  papers  ap 
peared,  they  all  received  notice  from  the  Minister  of  the 
Interior  that  they  must  give  no  report  whatever  of  the  pro 
ceedings  at  the  ficole  de  Medecine  but  that  they  might  copy 
what  would  appear  in  the  Moniteur  of  the  following  morning 
without  adding  a  single  word.  The  next  morning  the  dis 
course  appeared  at  length  in  the  Moniteur  without  an  allusion 
to  the  row  or  to  the  fact  that  the  orator  was  not  permitted  to 
deliver  it,  and  it  has  been  copied  thus  by  most  of  the  papers. 
The  demonstration  was  the  more  vexatious,  as  it  comes  from  a 
class  of  persons  whom  in  all  ages  and  countries  it  is  most 
difficult  to  hold  to  any  political  responsibility. 

I  hear  but  one  feeling  in  Paris  outside  of  the  official  press  in 
regard  to  the  recent  dispatch  about  America.  The  French  all 
feel  and  so  I  think  does  the  Government  now  that  they  have 
made  a  mistake  in  regard  to  its  effects  in  France,  though  I  am 
far  from  believing  as  Dr.  Evans  seems  to  have  been  told,  that 
the  Emperor  repents  of  it.  He  never  repents  of  anything.  He 
does  not  form  plans  lightly,  and  right  or  wrong  he  never 
abandons  them.  He  will  compel  us  to  make  peace  or  fight  him, 
in  my  opinion,  before  he  takes  any  step  backward.  He  has 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  we  have  not  the  ability  either 
to  stop  or  to  go  ahead  alone,  and  it  is  in  no  unkind  spirit,  I 
believe,  that  he  proposes  to  assist  us  in  bringing  this  wasting 
controversy  to  a  close.  If  he  should  find  that  the  democratic 
party,  from  which  he  thinks  the  cause  of  peace  has  so  much  to 
expect,  repel  the  idea  of  foreign  mediation  and  peace  without 
union,  it  will  make  him  more  cautious  and  circumspect  in  his 
movements,  but  it  will  not  make  him  retreat. 


ADDRESS  OF  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE        575 

I  have  a  note  from  Mr.  Bright,  to  whom  I  had  written  to  say 
that  if  his  Government  by  letting  another  Alabama  escape 
established  the  principle  that  vessels  under  its  national  flag 
could  be  fitted  out  and  armed  in  English  ports  to  prey  upon 
American  commerce,  he  might  expect  some  day  to  find  New 
York  or  Boston  shipbuilders  no  less  enterprising  than  his 
parliamentary  colleague  Mr.  Laird,  men  who  would  fit  out  ves 
sels  just  as  fast  and  arm  them  just  as  formidably  and  send 
them  under  the  same  flag  to  operate  upon  British  ships  oft 
New  York  or  in  the  British  channel.  I  quote  a  part  of  his 
reply:  "I  sent  your  letter  to  my  friend  Mr.  Gibson  and  he 
says  .  .  .  "  [The  extract  is  given  on  page  571.] 

You  may  see  in  some  of  the  papers  perhaps  that  a  body  call 
ing  itself  the  Committee  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  here  have 
prepared  an  address  on  the  subject  of  our  American  troubles 
friendly  to  the  North. 

I  have  not  been  able  yet  to  find  the  address  nor  the  Commit 
tee  though  I  have  ascertained  that  the  body  does  not  belong  to 
the  recognized  national  Protestant  Church.  M.  Coquerel,  who 
is  likely  to  know  of  any  movement  of  that  sort  in  Protestant 
circles,  if  it  carries  with  it  any  authority,  told  me  this  morning 
that  he  had  never  heard  of  the  address  of  the  Committee.  He 
then  gave  me  a  reason  for  their  church  preserving  silence  on 
our  troubles  which  he  seemed  anxious  you  should  know. 
Theirs  is  a  national  church,  as  much  so  as  the  Catholic;  as 
such  they  are  forbidden  to  hold  any  sort  of  commerce  with 
foreign  powers.  The  Protestants  are  well  content  to  observe 
this  restriction  as  by  it  they  purchase  a  corresponding  restric 
tion  upon  the  Catholics.  He  promised  to  find  out  for  me  the 
origin  and  character  of  this  Evangelical  Alliance,  and  if  it 
amounts  to  anything  he  will  advise  me. 

I  learn  that  Girardin  and  not  Galliardet  is  to  be  reinstalled 
as  editor  in  chief  of  La  Presse.  This  looks  better  for  us.  He 
is  a  particular  friend  of  Prince  Napoleon  and  the  cleverest 
journalist  on  the  continent  of  Europe  that  I  know  of.  He  will 
be  sure  of  getting  the  ear  of  France  and  I  hope  he  will  use  it 
kindly  for  us. 

4  P.M.  Since  writing  the  foregoing,  M.  Coquerel  has  called 
and  brought  me  the  address  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  to 
which  I  have  alluded.  You  will  perceive  it  has  a  certain  im 
portance.  I  regret  that  I  have  not  another  copy  to  send  to  the 


576       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

press  in  New  York.  Perhaps  you  will  see  fit  to  let  a  transla 
tion  of  this  one  be  furnished  to  the  public. 

Yours,  &c. 

P.S.  Everybody  is  asking  me  what  interpretation  to  put  upon 
the  elections.  I  am  sorry  not  to  hear  from  some  one  at  home 
what  is  understood  to  be  their  true  significance. 


BIGELOW  TO  WILLIAM  HAEGEEAVES 

Nov.  26, 1862. 
My  dear  Mr.  Hargreaves: 

It  will  appear  when  the  returns  are  all  in  that  the  Adminis 
tration  will  have  a  majority  in  the  next  congress  though, 
fortunately,  not  so  large  as  in  this.  I  think  there  has  been  no 
serious  defection  from  the  Eepublican  party.  Mr.  Lincoln 
lacked  by  over  a  million,  the  number  of  votes  cast  for  his  ad 
versaries  in  1860.  The  latter  have  now  united  and  have 
attracted  to  them  a  few  who  are  not  content  with  the  manage 
ment  of  the  war ;  while  at  least  ten  per  cent  of  the  Eepublican 
voters  are  absent  with  the  Army.  It  is  not  taken  into  account 
sufficiently  that  even  in  the  North,  Lincoln  had  less  than  a 
majority  of  the  popular  vote,  and  that  a  large  proportion  of 
the  Northern  voters  had  to  be  converted  by  war  to  a  realizing 
sense  of  the  demoralizing  and  destructive  influence  of  slavery. 
A  short  war  could  not,  as  we  see,  do  that,  and  so  a  merciful 
providence  has  made  it  a  long  one.  The  change  in  the  Com 
mander-in-chief  to  which  the  President  has  at  last  been 
brought,  is  evidence  to  me,  like  the  silver  lining  to  the  clouds, 
that  we  may  expect  fairer  weather  shortly.  If  Burnside  has 
no  bad  luck,  McClellan  will  be  forgotten  in  forty  days  or  re 
membered  only  as  an  incompetent,  and  the  Administration  will 
have  all  the  strength  in  and  out  of  Congress  that  it  can  make 
good  use  of.  Meantime  the  fetters  will  be  falling  from  the 
negro  and  the  slaveholders  will  find  themselves  hamstrung, 
the  connection  between  their  will  and  their  physical  functions 
broken. 

I  esteem  the  recent  check  reed,  by  the  Administration  the 
most  fortunate  event  that  has  happened  during  the  war— (if 


SILVER  CLOUDS  BODE  FAIRER  WEATHER     577 

any  one  event  in  the  order  of  Providence  is  more  fortunate 
than  another)— except  the  proclamation,  for  it  will  make  the 
President  and  his  advisers  feel  more  than  they  have  felt 
hitherto,  the  necessity  of  doing  something  (witness  already 
McClellan's  decapitation  and  Halleck's  letter)  and  it  will  give 
the  Govt.  a  strong  and  watchful  opposition  for  the  want  of 
which  during  the  last  two  years  the  country  has  greatly  suf 
fered. 

I  have  not  seen  the  articles  in  Weed's  Journal  to  which  you 
refer,  but  I  know  that  Weed  thinks  Sumner  presses  the  Sla 
very  question  without  measure  or  discretion  and  for  personal 
ends,  without  reference  to  the  interests  of  the  country,  and 
Sumner  no  doubt  credits  Weed  with  no  better  motives  for  his 
apparent  timidity.  Weed  is  constitutionally  a  timid  politician 
and  Sumner  not  a  very  practical  one.  It  is  not  surprising 
therefore  that  they  find  themselves  at  loggerheads. 

I  was  sorry  to  see  that  Buxton1  has  deserted  us.  If  he  had 
not  given  his  reasons  for  it  I  should  have  preserved  more 
respect  for  his  understanding. 

I  infer  from  what  I  hear  here,  that  Prince  Alfred's2  en- 
thronisation  is  pressed  with  the  consent  of  France.  Is  that  a 
makeweight  for  Mexico?  In  a  map  prepared  some  years  ago 
by  the  Emperor  and  surreptitiously  published,  a  plan  for  the 
redistribution  of  Europe  was  proposed  by  which  all  the  great 
powers  were  to  have  more  territory  than  they  had.  England 
was  to  have  some  islands  in  the  Aegean  Sea.  Perhaps  this  is  a 
substitute. 

Yours  very  truly 


BIGELOW  TO  WILLIAM  HABGEEAVES 

[PARIS]  1862. 
My  dear  Mr.  Har greaves: 

Some  weeks  ago  and  immediately  after  receiving  your  letter 
containing  an  allusion  to  the  proposal  to  send  relief  from 

1  Son  of  Sir  Thomas  Powell  Buxton,  the  earliest  of  the  English  antislavery 
philanthropists.    The  son  was  a  connection  by  marriage  of  the  Gurneys  and  a 
member  of  Parliament. 

2  The  second  son  of  Queen  Victoria,  Duke  of  Saxe-Coburg  and  Gotha.    He 
was  offered  the  crown  of  Greece  in  1862,  which  he  declined. 


578        EETEOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

America  to  Lancashire,  I  wrote  to  friends  in  New  York  and 
Philadelphia  to  try  and  send  a  few  ship  loads  of  grain  to  you 
and  I  sent  my  subscription  of  $200  towards  it.  I  wanted  it 
done  quietly  and  recommended  them  to  have  the  grain  con 
signed  to  Mr.  Bright  or  to  some  person  whom  he  should  rec 
ommend.  Whether  that  suggestion  will  prove  acceptable  or 
not  I  do  not  know,  but  that  the  grain  is  coming  there  is  no 
longer  any  doubt. 

A  letter  I  have  reed,  from  New  York  today  contains  a  pas 
sage  upon  the  subject  which  you  will  find  on  the  next  page. 

I  am  sorry  to  see  that  the  London  Times  is  trying  to  poison 
the  public  mind  of  England  against  us  by  pretending  that  the 
money  is  all  subscribed  by  Englishmen.  This  paragraph  will 
show  you  in  part  how  false  as  well  as  base  that  statement  is. 
I  would  not  publish  any  thing  on  the  subject  however  nor  have 
any  public  discussion.  When  the  grain  comes  there  is  no 
danger  but  it  will  find  its  way  into  grateful  stomachs. 

[Extract  referred  to:}  "I  attended  the  meeting  of  the 
Merchants  and  others  at  the  room  of  the  Chamber  of  Com 
merce  yesterday  in  behalf  of  the  Lancashire  operatives.  Lib 
eral  donations  for  the  purpose  were  made. 

"N.  L.  &  G.  Griswold  made  the  offer  of  a  vessel  of  1800  tons, 
said  to  be  equivalent  to  15  or  20,000  dollars.  John  C.  Green 
subscribed  $7000,  Dodge  &  Co.  $5000,  etc.  etc.  The  grass  does 
not  grow  in  our  streets  yet.  A  million  of  dollars'  worth  will 
be  sent." 

Yours  very  truly 


SEWAED  TO  BIGELOW 

Private 

DEPARTMENT  OF  STATE, 
WASHINGTON,  December  2,  1862. 
Sir: 

Your  very  interesting  letter  of  the  13th  of  November  has 
been  received, 

I  reply  to  your  inquiries,  that  not  only  has  no  encourage- 


A  FRENCH  FLEET  AT  NEW  ORLEANS    579 

ment  been  given  by  this  Government  to  the  proposition  for 
intervention  or  mediation  which  the  Emperor  has  submitted  to 
Eussia  and  Great  Britain,  but  on  the  contrary  the  language  of 
this  Government  has  in  every  case  been  so  emphatic  in  dis 
couraging  such  a  movement  as  was  compatible  with  a  proper 
respect  for  foreign  states.  The  state  papers  submitted  to 
Congress  with  the  Message,  will  relieve  all  anxieties  on  that 
subject. 

Secondly.  This  Government  has  nothing  to  say  about  the 
Emperor 's  proposition  to  foreign  Powers.  It  is  an  event  that 
is  already  passed.  This  Government  neither  asks,  nor  pro 
poses  to  consider,  any  explanations  upon  it. 

All  this  you  will  more  fully  learn  from  my  dispatch  to  Mr. 
Dayton,  which  he  will  show  you. 

We  are  no  longer  to  be  disturbed  by  Secession  intrigues  in 
Europe.  They  have  had  their  day.  We  propose  to  forget 

them.  T         0. 

I  am,  Sir 


BIGELOW  TO  SEWAED 

Unofficial 

PARIS,  Dec.  6,  1862. 
My  dear  Mr.  Seward: 

I  have  marked  a  very  significant  paragraph  in  yesterday 's 
Moniteur  that  it  may  be  sure  to  attract  your  attention.  It  is 
a  reference  to  the  visit  of  the  French  fleet  at  New  Orleans  and 
a  practical  congratulation  of  the  French  people  upon  a  wel 
come  extended  to  them  by  our  enemies.  It  is  also  the  first 
official  pretension  to  a  joint  occupation  of  our  territory  under 
the  pretext  of  sharing  with  Great  Britain  the  responsibility 
and  difficulties  of  protecting  the  people  of  Mexico.  As  every 
line  of  the  Moniteur  except  the  advertisements  passes  under 
the  eyes  of  the  Minister  of  State  every  day  or  night  rather,  I 
think  I  am  not  overestimating  the  importance  of  this  article 
when  I  think  it  asserts  dangerous  and  intolerable  pretensions. 


580        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

It  is  an  entering  wedge  upon  which  the  Emperor  will  strike 
again  or  not  as  he  finds  the  Union  yields. 

M.  Hachette,  the  principal  publisher  now  in  Paris,  is  anxious 
to  have  the  account  of  the  United  States  which  I  spoke  of,  to 
bring  out  the  last  of  January.  Lain  now  working  on  it  daily. 
Assuming  that  it  will  receive  your  approval  I  am  waiting 
anxiously  for  the  documents  to  be  communicated  to  Congress 
which  I  ventured  to  ask  you  for  in  a  letter  to  you  last  week  and 
which  I  hope  will  be  expedited  by  the  most  rapid  conveyance.1 
I  trust  also  many  copies  of  all  the  public  documents  may  be 
sent  to  me  as  early  as  possible  that  they  may  be  given  to  and 
appreciated  by  the  French  and  Continental  press  before  the 
distempered  views  of  the  English  journals  have  occupied  the 
field.  I  am  particularly  anxious  for  copies  of  the  forthcoming 
report  from  the  Superintendent  of  the  Census  and  the  Land 

Office.  -*T  -, 

Yours  very  truly 


WEED  TO  BIGELOW 

NEW  YORK,  December  19,  1862. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

I  did  not  reply  to  your  long  kind  letter  because  differing  as 
we  did  so  widely  in  opinions  it  was  impossible  to  make  our 
selves  understood  on  paper. 

I  labored  earnestly  with  Mr.  Lincoln  against  this  Proclama 
tion.  I  struggled  hard  to  keep  our  State  Convention  from 
going  to  the  people  on  that  issue.  But  all  was  in  vain. 

The  moment  Abolition  influences  prevailed  at  Washington 
and  in  this  state,  all  was  lost.  Our  people  have  given  the  gov 
ernment  all  it  asked  to  fight  the  Bebellion.  They  will  give  all 

1  The  work  here  referred  to  appeared  early  in  the  following  year  in  the 
French  language  and  with  the  title,  "Les  Etats-Unis  d'Amerique  en  1863."  Its 
special  purpose  was  to  spread  before  the  European  world  irresistible  evidence 
of  the  vast  difference  between  the  financial,  commercial  and  industrial  power 
of  the  Free  States  and  the  slaveholding  States,  and  the  relative  importance  of 
the  commercial  intercourse  with  the  two  sections;  subjects  about  which  not 
only  the  best-educated  classes  but  the  most  experienced  and  influential  states 
men  of  Europe  were  strangely  ignorant.  It  appeared  in  an  octavo  volume  of 
501  pages. 


EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION  DEPLORED      581 

—prospect  and  life— to  preserve  the  Union.  But  a  mere 
Abolition  War  will  collapse.  The  South  will  obtain  its  inde 
pendence,  and  the  West  will  go  from  us  unless  we  decide  to  go 
away  from  New  England  with  the  West. 

I  do  not,  dear  friend,  believe  that  we  should  have  differed  if 
we  could  have  been  constantly  face  to  face.  With  common 
sentiments  and  sympathies,  and  an  honest  purpose,  we  could 
not  have  differed,  looking  from  a  common  standpoint,  about 
the  proper  way  to  work  out  our  country's  salvation. 

There  is  exact  justice  in  the  Proclamation.  I  would  do  all 
that  it  recommends,  but  the  Proclamation  will  do  nothing,  for 
it  is  an  idle  fulmination.  We  have  no  power  to  exert  it  in 
favor  of  a  single  negro  beyond  our  military  line,  and  we  were 
doing  that  without  the  Proclamation,  which,  as  interpreted, 
narrows  the  war  down  to  one  for  emancipation.  This  war  has 
cost  150,000  lives  and  millions  of  treasure.  Now,  as  an  Aboli 
tion  War  the  government  will  get  no  more  soldiers. 

It  is  beginning  to  be  feared  that  ultra  abolitionists  have  been 
and  are  willing  to  see  the  Union  divided.  The  Tribune,  you 
will  remember,  intimated  as  much  early,  and  squints  that  way 
yesterday.  There  are  others  who  would  be  willing  to  serve  as 
President  of  a  Northern  republic.  The  latest  slaughter^  is 
arousing  popular  inquiry.  The  people  will  insist  on  knowing 
who  is  responsible. 

The  Radicals  are  organizing  for  U.  S.  Senator.  Many  want 
Field  or  Opdike  (or  rather  F.  &  0.  want  the  place),  though 
they  may  unite  on  Wadsworth.  We  shall  see  about  King  if  we 
can ;  if  not,  Morgan. 

I  could  not  consent  to  go  abroad  with  a  sad  conviction  that 
all  was  going  to  destruction  at  Home. 

Truly  yours 


In  a  speech  at  Birmingham  on  the  18th  of  December,  1862, 
Mr.  Bright  closes  with  one  of  the  "happiest  oratorical  efforts  of 
his  life : 

I  blame  men  who  are  eager  to  admit  into  the  family  of  nations  a 
state  which  offers  itself  to  us,  based  on  a  principle,  I  will  undertake  to 
say,  more  odious  and  blasphemous  than  was  ever  heretofore  dreamed 


582        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

of  in  Christian  or  pagan,  in  civilized  or  in  savage  times.  The  leader 
of  this  revolt  proposes  this  monstrous  thing— that  over  a  territory 
forty  times  as  large  as  England  the  blight  and  curse  of  slavery  shall 
be  forever  perpetuated.  I  cannot  believe,  for  my  part,  that  such  a 
fate  will  befall  that  fair  land,  stricken  though  it  now  is  with  the 
ravages  of  war.  I  cannot  believe  that  civilization,  in  its  journey  with 
the  sun,  will  sink  into  endless  night  in  order  to  gratify  the  ambition 
of  the  leaders  of  this  revolt,  who  seek  to 

"  .  .  .  Wade  through  slaughter  to  a  throne 
And  shut  the  gates  of  mercy  on  mankind." 

I  have  another  and  a  far  brighter  vision  before  my  gaze ;  it  may  be  but 
a  vision,  but  I  will  cherish  it.  I  see  one  vast  confederation  stretching 
from  the  frozen  north  in  unbroken  line  to  the  glowing  south,  and 
from  the  wild  billows  of  the  Atlantic  westward  to  the  calmer  waters 
of  the  Pacific  main, — and  I  see  one  people,  and  one  language,  and  one 
law,  and  one  faith,  and  over  all  that  wide  continent,  the  home  of  free 
dom,  and  a  refuge  for  the  oppressed  of  every  race  and  of  every  clime. 


BIGELOW  TO  HAEGEEAVES 

PAKIS,  Dec.  21,  1862. 
My  dear  Mr.  Ear greaves: 

I  was  just  sitting  down  to  write  you,  when  your  welcome 
note  arrived.  I  want  to  know  what,  if  any,  foundation  there  is 
for  the  report  that  Mr.  Bright  is  going  to  America.  I  discredit 
it  because  I  do  not  imagine  that  lie  stands,  at  present,  in  any 
such  relations  to  your  Govt.,  especially  on  the  Trent  question, 
as  to  render  such  a  mission  of  any  practical  service.  If  there 
is  no  objection  pray  let  me  know  if  there  is  any  thing  in  the 
rumor.  I  feel  more  encouraged  about  the  future  since  the 
receipt  of  the  Message.  I  don't  think  "Pam"  can  have  a  fight 
with  us  just  now  let  him  try  never  so  hard.  You  may  tell  him 
however  when  you  see  him  that  if  we  do  have  a  war,  the  terms 
of  peace  on  your  side  will  be  settled  by  a  prime  Minister  of 
Mr.  Cobden's  schooi  of  politics,  and  the  Aristocracy  of  Eng 
land  will  be  put  upon  the  road  that  the  Aristocracy  of  America 
are  now  travelling.  The  Aristocracy  will  begin  this  war  if 
there  is  to  be  one,  but  they  will  not  finish  it. 


THE   SENATORIAL  CABAL  AGAINST  SEWARD    583 

I  rejoice  in  the  success  of  the  Star  with  all  my  heart.  It  is 
edited  with  great  ability  and  wisdom,  and  is  a  daily  comfort  to 
me. 

Eemember  me  always  to  your  family. 
Yours  very  truly 


I  have  reason  to  believe  that  the  source  of  the  information 
given  in  the  following  letter  was  the  Hon.  Henry  J.  Eaymond, 
editor  of  the  New  York  Times,  who  was  in  Washington  during 
the  crisis  described  and  was  in  the  closest  political  relations 
with  Mr.  Seward  and  the  President. 


JAMES  W.  SIMONTON  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  Dec.  21,  1862. 
My  dear  Sir: 

...  I  need  not  tell  you  that  there  has  long  been  a  decided 
feeling  of  hostility  to  Mr.  Seward  and  his  policy,  entertained 
among  the  Eepublican  Senators,  under  the  lead  of  Sumner, 
Wilson,  Chandler  &  Co.  Neither  is  it  necessary  to  discuss  its 
motives,  its  justice  or  wisdom.  This  antagonism  has  con 
stantly  embarrassed  the  administration  and  pulled  and  hauled 
the  President  hither  and  yon  as  the  opposing  forces  swayed 
with  preponderating  influence  in  either  direction.  To  this 
cause  it  is  safe  to  attribute  much  of  the  unsteadiness  and 
vacillation  which  at  all  times  has  marked  the  administration, 
encouraged  the  public  enemy  and  disheartened  intelligently 
loyal  men.  After  the  late  disaster  at  Fredericksburg,  this 
antagonism  resulted  in  a  senatorial  Eepublican  caucus,  wherein 
was  discussed  a  resolution  expressing  a  want  of  confidence  in 
Mr.  Seward  as  a  member  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  Cabinet.  The  cau 
cus,  had  a  vote  been  taken  on  this  position,  would  have  stood 
16  for  to  13  against  it.  As  nothing  nearer  unanimity  could 
then  be  obtained,  the  caucus  adjourned  until  the  next  day 
(Wednesday  last),  when  the  resolution  was  modified  so  as  to 
indicate  as  the  opinion  of  the  Eepublican  Senators  that  the 


584        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

President  ought  to  l '  partially  remodel ' '  his  Cabinet.  The  con 
servatives,  or  those  who  were  opposed  to  the  original  resolu 
tion  (considering  that  the  modification  would  be  accepted  and 
understood  as  an  invitation  to  all  the  Cabinet  to  resign  and 
leave  the  President  free  to  choose  anew  his  Constitutional  ad 
visers),  voted  for  the  amended  resolve,  and  it  passed  unani 
mously.  Mr.  Seward  was  informed  of  this  action  immediately 
after  the  caucus  adjourned,  and  within  half  an  hour  his  own 
and  his  son's  resignations  were  in  the  President's  hands.— 
You  may  be  sure  there  was  trouble  then  at  the  White  House. 
The  President  declined  to  accept  the  resignation  but  Mr.  Sew 
ard  insisted  and  abandoned  the  Department,  carrying  away  his 
private  papers  and  beginning  to  pack  up  for  Cayuga  Co.  This 
was  on  Wednesday  night  and  Thursday.  On  the  latter  day  the 
President,  Secretary  Chase,  and  others  labored  earnestly,  but 
without  avail,  to  change  Seward 's  resolution.  He  would  not 
discuss  the  question  at  all.  The  Kepublican  Senate  had  voted 
their  distrust  of  him,  and  he  would  not  hold  a  place  that  re 
quired  only  sacrifices  at  his  hands,  and  in  which  his  efforts  to 
serve  the  country  were  to  be  thwarted  by  inconsiderate  prej 
udice.  On  Friday  the  efforts  at  conciliation  were  renewed. 
Mr.  Seward,  it  is  said,  declined  to  consider  the  proposition  to 
withdraw  his  resignation  unless  the  indignity  put  upon  him 
should  be  first  withdrawn,  and  he  could  be  assured  of  harmony 
in  the  administration  upon  some  fixed  and  definite  policy  for 
carrying  on  the  war  and  saving  the  Union.— I  cannot  vouch 
entirely  for  the  accuracy  of  these  conditions  precedent,  but  am 
inclined  to  think  they  are  stated  with  substantial  accuracy. 

Thus  matters  stood  until  yesterday,  Mr.  Lincoln  still  per 
sisted  in  refusing  to  allow  Mr.  Seward  to  retire.  Fully  justify 
ing  his  [  Seward 's]  feeling  of  resentment  he  nevertheless 
declared  that  he  could  not  and  would  not  dispense  with  his 
services,  and  urged  that  it  was  his  duty  to  rise  above  all  per 
sonal  considerations  in  this  terrible  crisis  and  lend  his  aid  to 
the  salvation  of  the  country.  No  man  labored  more  faithfully 
than  did  Mr.  Chase  to  bring  about  a  reconciliation,— and  when 
all  efforts  had  failed,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  handed  in 
his  resignation  also,  putting  it  distinctly  and  manfully  upon 
the  ground  that  he  would  not  remain  in  the  administration  if 
Mr.  Seward  retired  from  it.  This  was  more  than  the  Radicals 
had  bargained  for,— as  their  main  dependence  was  Mr.  Chase. 


SEWARD  AND   CHASE   OFFER  TO  RESIGN      585 

To  him  they  looked  as  their  leader  in  the  new  administration. 
Their  own  god  had  turned  upon  and  floored  them.  I  don't 
know  exactly  how  the  affair  was  patched  up ;  but  today  it  is 
decided  (but  not  yet  public)  that  Mr.  Seward  remains.  This 
defeat  of  Wilson  &  Co.  will  probably  quiet  them  for  a  while. 
Of  course  it  will  render  Mr.  Seward  more  powerful  than  ever 
before,  both  in  the  administration  and  outside  of  it.  I  believe 
its  fruits  will  be  only  good.  What  think  you? 

It  is  impossible  for  me  to  describe  to  you  the  excitement  and 
apprehension  created  by  the  announcement  of  Mr.  Seward 's 
withdrawal.  Govt.  allowed  no  telegrams  on  the  subject  to 
leave  the  city  for  a  day  or  two,— so  that  the  howl  elsewhere  has 
not  had  opportunity  to  get  under  full  headway.  But  here, 
everybody  without  exception  other  than  those  who  had  precipi 
tated  the  crisis,  seemed  filled  with  apprehension.  I  wrote  you 
a  gloomy  letter  a  week  ago  but  the  terrible  cloud  of  apprehen 
sion  which  settled  upon  us  all  during  Friday  and  Saturday  was 
darker  and  denser  than  any  which  I  ever  experienced  or  any 
which  I  have  been  able  to  realize  in  history.  In  the  present 
depressed  and  apprehensive  condition  of  the  popular  mind,  I 
do  not  believe  the  Eadical  programme  could  have  run  a  week 
without  a  popular  revolution.  .  .  .  Up  to  this  time  I  have  not 
the  distinct  assertion  that  Mr.  Chase's  resignation  has  also 
been  withdrawn.  One  rumor  is  that  it  is  accepted.  My  im 
pression  is  that  Mr.  Chase  will  also  remain  where  he  is.  Mr. 
Stanton  may  go  out,  but  the  chances  are  that  he  will  not  for 
the  present.  .  .  . 

P.M.  General  Blair  tendered  his  commission  also  to  the 
President  on  Saturday;  but  as  he  has  been  in  no  way  com 
mitted  in  the  crisis  Mr.  Lincoln  told  him  to  put  it  back  in  his 
pocket. 

Banks  has  gone  to  New  Orleans,  yqu  probably  know,  to  re 
lieve  Butler.  Mobile  to  be  captured  by  gunboats  and  gar 
risoned  by  7,000  men  under  Butler. 

Truly  yours 


The  war  raised  many  novel  questions  of  political  ethics.  One 
which  was  presented  to  me  this  year  I  shall  be  guilty  of  the 


586       RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

indiscretion  of  making  a  record  of;  for  I  consider  that  every 
incident  which  makes  the  evil  effects  of  debasing  the  currency 
more  conspicuous  is  of  value. 

In  the  fall  of  1861 1  asked  Mr.  X,  a  prominent  banker  whom 
it  had  been  my  privilege  as  a  journalist  to  place  under  some 
obligations  and  for  whom  I  had  much  personal  regard,  to  tell 
me  how  I  could  most  safely  invest  $10,000  which  I  proposed  to 
make  a  birthday  present  to  my  wife.  X  recommended  me  to 
buy  some  municipal  bonds  of  a  Western  city.  I  told  him  that, 
as  I  was  more  anxious  for  security  than  for  large  interest,  and 
as  I  knew  nothing  about  these  bonds  and  he  knew  everything, 
I  would  take  them  if  he  would  guarantee  them,  I  paying  him 
the  usual  commission  for  such  guaranty.  He  showed  some 
reluctance  to  do  this  at  first,  as  contrary  to  the  habit  of  his 
house;  but,  as  I  was  tenacious,  finally  yielded.  I  took  the 
bonds  without  even  reading  them.  X  signed  the  guaranty, 
and  accepted  his  2y2  per  cent,  commission,  amounting  to  $250. 
Not  long  after  this  transaction  President  Lincoln  sent  me  to 
Paris,  and  I  had  not  been  there  quite  a  year  when  I  received  a 
note  from  the  gentleman  in  charge  of  my  financial  affairs  in 
New  York,  informing  me  that  the  bonds  had  fallen  due ;  that 
he  had  presented  them  in  the  proper  quarter  for  payment,  but 
was  offered  currency,  then  known  from  its  color  as  "green 
backs,"  which  currency  was  already  so  much  depreciated  that 
gold  was  at  a  premium  of  150  to  160  and  upward,  making  a 
difference  of  several  thousand  dollars  to  my  wife.  My  agent 
demanded  gold,  according  to  the  specific  terms  of  the  bonds. 
The  city  refused,  and  told  him  he  must  take  greenbacks  or 
nothing.  He  had  the  bonds  protested  for  non-payment.  He 
then  applied  to  the  guarantor.  There  he  was  told  that  the 
guarantor  was  to  pay  only  in  case  the  makers  of  the  bonds 
refused  payment;  and  as  the  city  offered  to  pay  in  the  legal 
currency  of  the  country,  he  considered  himself  discharged 
from  any  liability  to  pay  in  any  other. 

My  agent  wrote  to  me  for  instructions.  I  was  surprised  and 
pained  at  the  position  taken  by  my  friend.  Had  the  bond  said 
nothing  about  the  currency  in  which  it  was  to  be  paid,  I  should 
have  considered  that  the  bond-makers,  being  a  public  corpora 
tion,  would  have  been  entitled  to  act  as  they  did,  and  the 
guarantor  for  the  same  reason  exonerated  from  any  liability ; 
but  the  engagement  to  pay  in  gold  took  the  bonds  out  of 


A  NOVEL  QUESTION  OF  ETHICS  587 

the  operation  of  the  Legal  Tender  Act  and  was  just  as  binding 
upon  the  makers  and  guarantor  as  any  other  specific  condition 
of  the  bond  over  which  neither  Congress  nor  any  other  legis 
lative  body  could  exercise  any  control.  Besides,  the  guarantor 
had  received  from  me  a  premium  of  $250  to  guarantee  these 
bonds  in  gold ;  and  whatever  the  city  of  St.  Louis  might  do  or 
refuse  to  do,  it  seemed  very  clear  to  my  mind  that  my  guaran 
tor  should  have  paid  me  the  difference  in  gold  or  its  equivalent 
in  currency.  He  did  not,  however,  feel  bound  to  pay  me  in  gold 
nor  ashamed  to  keep  the  commission.  I  was  astonished  and 
disappointed  by  my  friend 's  decision. 

At  the  time  of  this  repudiation  a  gold  dollar  was  worth 
between  sixty  and  seventy  cents  more  than  a  legal-tender  or 
currency  dollar.  The  bonds  if  paid  in  gold,  therefore,  would 
have  been  worth  $16,000  in  currency.  My  loss  and  X's  saving 
by  this  operation  was  $6000,  which  with  the  $250  I  paid  for  his 
guaranty  amounted  to  $6250.  Large  as  the  loss  was  to  me,  his 
was  the  greater. 

There  was  another  feature  of  this  transaction  which  illus 
trated  my  simplicity,  but  in  an  equal  degree  failed  to  bring 
any  of  X's  into  relief.  I  did  not  examine  the  bonds  when  I 
bought  them,  nor  inquire  their  date.  I  took  them  in  full  con 
fidence  that  they  were  what  I  wanted,  not  for  speculation,  but 
for  an  investment,  of  which  X  was  especially  advised.  My  sur 
prise  on  finding  them  falling  due  within  less  than  a  twelve 
month  was  greater,  if  possible,  than  that  which  I  experienced 
when  I  learned  that  he  repudiated  his  guaranty  for  their 
payment  in  gold.  I  was  in  Paris  at  the  time  and  for  the  sev 
eral  years  following,  and  I  never  asked  for  any  explanation  of 
his  part  in  this  business,  nor  did  he  ever  proffer  any. 


XV 

OPERATIONS  OF  THE  CONFEDERATES  IN  EUROPE 
MOTLEY  TO  BIGELOW 

VIENNA,  Jan.  8,  1863. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

I  AM  afraid  that  you  will  consider  me  a  very  bad  corre 
spondent,  for  your  letter  of  November  14th  has  not  yet 
been  answered.  But  when  it  reached  me,  I  was  far  from 
well,  indeed  quite  unable  to  write— a  condition  in  which  I  re 
mained  for  several  weeks.  I  thank  you  for  sending  me  the 
Independence  Beige— but  I  take  that  paper  regularly  and  so 
had  already  read  the  letter,  nominally  from  New  York,  con 
taining  our  griefs  against  perfidious  Albion.  I  quite  agree 
with  that  summing  up.  Am  I  right  in  supposing  that  it 
emanated  from  the  United  States  Consul  in  Paris  ?  It  is  very 
well  put  indeed— and  not  one  of  the  charges  can  be  gainsaid. 
I  am  however  most  decidedly  of  opinion,  and  have  been  so  ever 
since  our  civil  war  began,  that  it  is  not  desirable  for  us  to  have 
a  war  with  any  European  power,  if  we  can  possibly  avoid  it 
with  honor. 

Our  soldiers  have  displayed  a  bravery  unsurpassed  in  the 
annals  of  any  nation.  A  military  critic,  generally  most  un 
friendly,  in  the  Allgemeine  Zeitung  writes  from  Washington 
that  the  army,  under  a  great  general,  would  prove  itself  ' '  su 
perior  to  anything  ever  known  in  history/'  But  I  don't 
think  we  have  shown  a  very  surpassing  genius  for  campaign 
ing  and  organizing,  so  that  the  Confederates  just  now  give  us 
quite  as  much  to  do,  and  to  spend,  as  seems  desirable.  As  long 
as  we  can  help  it,  they  must  not  have  the  alliance  of  England 
or  France. 

588 


ENGLAND  TO  BE  CRUSHED  BY  FORGIVENESS    589 

As  for  England— she  will  content  herself  with  blackguard 
ing  us  from  the  stump  and  through  the  press,  as  she  has  been 
doing  from  the  beginning— and  with  allowing  her  subjects,  as 
private  individuals,  to  make  war  upon  us  with  Alabamas  and 
the  like.  Thus  far  she  has  not  found  it  likely  to  pay  to  come  to 
an  open  breach,  except  with  a  good  cry,  like  the  Trent  "  out 
rage.  "  Of  course  if  we  wish  to  come  to  blows  with  her,  the 
Alabama,  I  suppose,  is  a  casus  belli.  Were  the  cases  reversed, 
I  doubt  if  England  would  rest  an  hour  under  such  an  injury 
and  insult  combined.  Certainly  France  would  n't.  But  it  is 
the  part  of  wisdom  on  our  side,  to  pocket  these  things  for  the 
present. 

The  U.  S.  A.  will  remain  many  a  century  to  come,  I  firmly 
believe,  and  there  never  could  be  a  worse  time  than  the  present 
to  send  in  our  little  bill.  Let  it  run.  One  of  these  days,  we 
can  crush  her  with  our  forgiveness— or  if  we  are  less  mag 
nanimous,  we  can  treat  her  to  a  little  of  the  same  "  neutrality " 
with  which  she  has  indulged  us.  A  good  many  Alabamas 
could  sail  out  of  New  York  and  Boston  and  burn  English  ves 
sels,  when  we  find  ourselves  at  peace,  and  England  at  war,  or 
in  revolution,  if  this  is  the  accepted  doctrine  of  neutrality. 
After  all,  we  have  many  stray  friends  in  England,  whom  the 
ruling  classes  fear  as  much  as  they  hate.  The  present  govern 
ment  could  not  stand  without  the  help  of  the  radicals,  and  so 
they  are  obliged  to  conciliate  them,  while  detesting  them. 

The  speeches  of  Bright  and  Cobden,  and  the  recent  demon 
stration  in  favor  of  the  United  States  by  the  working  men  at 
Manchester,  tell  government  plainly  enough  what  would  be  the 
consequence  of  confronting  the  antislavery  feeling  of  the 
masses  by  intervention  in  our  affairs  now  that  our  antislavery 
position  is  so  patent  to  the  world  that  it  can  no  longer  be  lied 
out  of  existence  by  forty  Gladstones,  and  by  all  the  Time's 's 
and  Saturday  Reviews  in  the  world.  The  real  danger  is  your 
friend  L.  N.  His  flatterers  have  so  long  been  persuading  him 
that  he  is  a  God,  and  Europe  has  so  long  been  grovelling  be 
fore  him  and  he  is  by  nature  and  position  so  specially  a  con 
spirator  against  freedom  and  civilization— hostis  humani 
generis— that  he  must  necessarily  sympathize  with  the  slave 
holders.  Of  course  if  England  would  only  accept  his  proposi 
tions,  we  should  have  trouble  enough.  Therefore  my  special 
vials  of  wrath  are  always  kept  bottled  up  for  him.  England 


590        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

(as  represented  by  her  dominant  classes)  hates  us  savagely 
enough,  but  she  is  not  such  an  ass  as  to  suppose  that  all  the  old 
rotten  machinery  and  stage  tricks  of  the  "balance  of  power " 
buffoonery,  which  make  up  the  European  system,  can  be  suc 
cessfully  transplanted  to  America. 

Pray  give  my  kindest  regards  to  Mrs.  Bigelow. 

Very  sincerely  yours 


BENJAMIN  TO  DE  LEON 

DEPARTMENT  OP  STATE,  RICHMOND, 

Jan.  10,  1863. 
Sir: 

Your  dispatches  Nos.  3  and  4,  of  1st  and  13th  November,  were 
received  on  25th  ult.  and  have  been  read  with  great  interest.  You 
will  perceive  by  the  President's  message,  which  will  reach  you  prob 
ably  in  anticipation  of  this  dispatch,  that  this  government  has  not 
for  one  moment  relaxed  its  energies,  nor  is  there  any  disposition 
to  do  so,  notwithstanding  the  general  impression  which  seemed  to 
prevail  that  some  decisive  action  by  the  French  Government  alone 
was  likely  to  follow  the  rejection  of  the  proposals  made  by  the  French 
Emperor  to  the  other  two  powers.  We  have  felt  that  it  is  to  our  un 
aided  efforts  that  our  independence  is  to  be  due ;  but  we  have  a  right, 
a  clear  undoubted  right  to  recognition  and  its  continued  refusal  by 
Europe  is  disgraceful  to  neutral  powers.  The  President  has  uttered 
in  dignified  and  measured  tones  what  is  the  universal  sentiment  of  this 
people  that  our  treatment  by  Europe  has  been  unfair  and  unjust, 
though  he  has  not  been  permitted  by  his  position  to  add  the  further 
fact  that  universal  conviction  on  this  side  attributes  the  injustice  and 
unfairness  of  neutral  powers  to  one  cause  alone,  that  is  fear  of  the 
North.  I  have  nothing  to  add  to  former  instructions.  The  Depart 
ment  expects  the  continuance  of  every  effort  on  your  part  to  act  on 
public  opinion  by  disseminating  as  widely  as  possible  the  truth  in  rela 
tion  to  this  contest.  The  perversions  of  the  Northern  press  render  this 
an  onerous  labour,  but  thus  far  it  has  been  performed  with  a  diligence 
and  ability  which  I  am  happy  to  recognize.  You  will  receive  herewith 
1000  pounds,  for  further  expenditure  in  the  same  direction.  The  De 
partment  expects  an  account  of  the  disbursements  of  the  secret  service 
money  with  vouchers  in  all  cases  where  receipts  can  be  had,  and  with 
certificates  on  honour  of  such  payments  as  do  not  permit  the  taking  of 


MORE  MONEY  TO  ENLIGHTEN  THE  PRESS        591 

receipts.  These  accounts  and  vouchers  are  kept  confidential,  do  not 
leave  the  Department  and  do  not  pass  through  the  Treasury  books. 
They  are  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  President,  who  not  being  called  on 
to  account  for  the  expenditure,  is  for  that  very  reason  the  more  scrupu 
lous  in  relation  to  it. 
I  have  the  honour  to  be, 

Your  obedient  servant 


President  Davis  did  not  reply  as  promptly  as  he  might  have 
done  to  his  English  commissioner's  dispatch  of  November  4, 
1862,  in  relation  to  the  antislavery  clauses  with  which.,  accord 
ing  to  the  intimations  of  Lord  Donoughmore,  it  would  be 
necessary  to  decorate  any  treaty  of  alliance  of  the  Confederate 
States  with  Great  Britain.  Perhaps  lie  thought  no  people  so 
intelligent  as  the  English  really  cared  whether  their  cotton 
was  grown  with  free  or  slave  labor,  or  whether  their  ships 
trading  with  Africa  brought  away  negroes  or  elephants '  tusks ; 
perhaps  there  was  not  entire  harmony  of  opinion  upon  the 
subject  among  his  advisers ;  perhaps  deference  to  Mr.  Mason's 
notification  that  he  needed  no  instruction  influenced  them. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  reason,  several  weeks  elapsed  be 
fore  the  Eichmond  Government  was  agreed  upon  the  instruc 
tions  it  should  give  to  its  commissioners.  It  finally  sent  to  the 
commissioners  its  reply  in  the  following  dispatches,  the  first 
unofficial  and  second  official : 


BENJAMIN  TO  MASON 

Unofficial 

RICHMOND,  January  15,  1863. 
Dear  Sir: 

Your  unofficial  communication,  inclosed  in  despatch  No.  20,  was 
duly  received.  We  are  greatly  surprised  at  its  contents,  but  the  sus 
picions  excited  abroad  through  the  numerous  agencies  established  by 
the  Northern  Government,  of  our  intention  to  change  the  constitution 
and  open  the  slave-trade,  are  doubtless  the  cause  of  the  views  so 
strongly  expressed  to  you  by  Lord  Donoughmore  and  others. 


592        RETROSPECTIONS  OP  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

After  conference  with  the  President,  we  have  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  best  mode  of  meeting  the  question  is  to  assume  the  constitu 
tional  ground  developed  in  the  accompanying  despatch,  No.  13.  If 
you  find  yourself  unable  by  the  adoption  of  the  line  of  conduct  sug 
gested  in  that  despatch  to  satisfy  the  British  Government,  I  see  no 
other  course  than  to  propose  to  them  to  transfer  any  negotiations  that 
may  have  been  commenced  to  this  side,  on  the  ground  of  the  absence  of 
any  instructions  or  authority  to  bind  your  government  by  any  stipu 
lations  on  the  forbidden  subject,  and  the  totally  unexpected  nature 
of  the  proposition  made  to  you. 

If  the  British  Government  should  persist  in  the  views  you  attribute 
to  it,  the  matter  can  plainly  be  disposed  of  to  much  more  advantage 
on  this  side,  and  it  may  very  well  happen  that  that  haughty  govern 
ment  will  find  to  its  surprise  that  it  needs  a  treaty  of  commerce  with 
us  much  more  than  we  need  it  with  Great  Britain.  Of  this,  however, 
I  am  sure  you  will  allow  no  hint  to  escape  you. 

Very  respectfully,  etc. 


BENJAMIN  TO  SLTDELL 

DEPARTMENT  OP  STATE,  RICHMOND, 

Jan.  15,  1863. 
Sir: 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  there  is  great  and  increasing  irritation  in 
the  public  mind  on  this  side  in  consequence  of  our  unjust  treatment 
by  foreign  powers  and  it  will  require  all  the  influence  of  the  President 
to  prevent  some  explosion  and  to  maintain  that  calm  and  self-con 
tained  attitude  which  is  alone  becoming  in  such  circumstances.  We 
should  probably  not  be  very  averse  to  the  recall  of  Mr.  Mason,  who 
has  been  discourteously  treated  by  Earl  Russell,  were  it  not  that  such 
a  step  would  have  so  marked  a  significance  while  you  remain  at  Paris, 
as  would  probably  cause  serious  interference  with  the  success  of  the 
preparations  now  nearly  completed  for  the  purchase  of  the  articles 
so  much  needed  in  the  further  prosecution  of  the  war.  If  the  repulse 
of  the  enemy  at  Vicksburg  in  addition  to  the  terrible  slaughter  of 
his  troops  at  Fredericksburg  prove  insufficient  to  secure  our  recogni 
tion,  the  continued  presence  of  our  agent  abroad  can  only  be  defended 
or  excused  on  the  ground  that  the  necessities  of  our  position  render 
indispensable  the  supplies  which  we  draw  from  Europe,  and  which 
would  perhaps  be  withheld  if  we  gave  manifestation  of  our  indigna 
tion  at  the  unfair  treatment  which  we  have  received. 

I  am,  etc. 


THE  SLAVE-TRADE  RESTRICTED  593 

How  Mason  was  affected  by  Benjamin's  instruction  to  have 
no  unnecessary  discussions  on  the  slavery  clause  introduced 
into  his  negotiations,  and  the  alternative  proposal  to  transfer 
the  negotiations  to  Richmond,  is  not  disclosed  in  his  official 
correspondence,  though  it  may  be  imagined,  and  indeed  it  may 
be  inferred  from  the  following  paragraph  in  a  dispatch  from 
Benjamin  to  Mason,  written  August  4, 1868,  only  seven  months 
after  the  dispatch  last  cited. 

The  perusal  of  the  recent  debates  in  the  British  Parliament  satisfies 
the  President  that  H.  B.  M.'s  Government  has  determined  to  decline 
the  overtures  made  through  you  for  establishing,  by  treaty,  friendly 
relations  between  the  two  governments,  and  entertain  no  intention  of 
receiving  you  as  the  accredited  minister  of  this  government  near  the 
British  court.  Under  these  circumstances  the  President  requests  that 
you  consider  your  mission  at  an  end,  and  that  you  withdraw  with  your 
secretary  from  London. 


BENJAMIN  TO  SLIDELL  AND  MASON 

Circular 

RICHMOND,  Jan'y  15, 1863. 
HON.  JOHN  SLIDELL,  etc.,  Paris. 

Sir: 

It  has  been  suggested  to  this  government,  from  a  source  of  unques 
tioned  authority,  that  after  the  recognition  of  our  independence  by 
the  European  powers,  an  expectation  is  generally  entertained  by  them 
that  in  our  treaties  of  amity  and  commerce  a  clause  will  be  introduced 
making  stipulations  against  the  African  slave-trade.  It  is  even  thought 
that  neutral  powers  may  be  inclined  to  insist  upon  the  insertion  of 
such  a  clause  as  a  sine  qua  non. 

You  are  well  aware  how  firmly  fixed  in  our  constitution  is  the  policy 
of  this  Confederacy  against  the  opening  of  that  trade,  but  we  are 
informed  that  false  and  insidious  suggestions  have  been  made  by  the 
agents  of  the  United  States  at  European  courts  of  our  intention  to 
change  our  constitution  as  soon  as  peace  is  restored,  and  of  authoriz 
ing  the  importation  of  slaves  from  Africa.  If  therefore  you  should 
find  in  your  intercourse  with  the  cabinet  to  which  you  are  accredited 
that  any  such  impressions  are  entertained,  you  will  use  every  proper 
effort  to  remove  them;  and  if  an  attempt  is  made  to  introduce  into 


594        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

any  treaty  which  you  may  be  charged  with  negotiating  stipulations 
on  the  subject  just  mentioned,  you  will  assume  in  behalf  of  your  gov 
ernment  the  position  which,  under  the  direction  of  the  President,  I 
now  proceed  to  develop. 

The  constitution  of  the  Confederate  States  is  an  agreement  made 
between  independent  States.  By  its  terms  all  the  powers  of  govern 
ment  are  separated  into  classes  as  follows,  viz. : 

1st.  Such  powers  as  the  States  delegate  to  the  General  Government. 

2d.  Such  powers  as  the  States  agree  to  refrain  from  exercising,  al 
though  they  do  not  delegate  them  to  the  General  Government. 

3d.  Such  powers  as  the  States,  without  delegating  them  to  the  Gen 
eral  Government,  thought  proper  to  exercise  by  direct  agreement 
between  themselves  contained  in  the  constitution. 

4th.  All  remaining  powers  of  sovereignty  which,  not  being  delegated 
to  the  Confederate  States  by  the  constitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it  to 
the  States,  are  reserved  to  the  States  respectively  or  to  the  people 
thereof. 

On  the  formation  of  the  constitution,  the  States  thought  proper  to 
prevent  all  possible  future  discussions  on  the  subject  of  slavery  by 
the  direct  exercise  of  their  own  power,  and  delegated  no  authority  to 
the  Confederate  Government  save  immaterial  exceptions  presently  to 
be  noticed.  Especially  in  relation  to  the  importation  of  African 
negroes  was  it  deemed  important  by  the  States  that  no  power  to  per 
mit  it  should  exist  in  the  Confederate  Government.  The  States  by 
the  constitution  (which  is  a  treaty  between  themselves  of  the  most 
solemn  character  that  States  can  make)  unanimously  stipulated  that 
"the  importation  of  negroes  of  the  African  race  from  any  foreign 
country  other  than  the  slave-holding  States  or  Territories  of  the 
United  States  of  America  is  hereby  forbidden;  and  Congress  is  re 
quired  to  pass  such  laws  as  shall  effectually  prevent  the  same."  (Art. 
I.,  Sect.  9,  Par.  1.) 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  no  power  is  delegated  to  the  Confederate 
Government  over  this  subject,  but  that  it  is  included  in  the  third  class 
above  referred  to,  of  powers  exercised  directly  by  the  States. 

It  is  true  that  the  duty  is  imposed  on  Congress  to  pass  laws  to  render 
effectual  the  prohibition  above  quoted.  But  this  very  imposition  of  a 
duty  on  Congress  is  the  strongest  proof  of  the  absence  of  power  in 
the  President  and  Senate  alone,  who  are  vested  with  authority  to  make 
treaties.  In  a  word,  as  the  only  provision  on  the  subject  directs  the 
two  branches  of  the  legislative  department,  in  connection  with  the 
President,  to  pass  laws  on  this  subject,  it  is  out  of  the  power  of  the 
President  aided  by  one  branch  of  the  legislative  department  to  control 
the  same  subject  by  treaties;  for  there  is  not  only  an  absence  of  ex 
press  delegation  of  authority  to  the  treaty-making  power,  which  alone 
would  suffice  to  prevent  the  exercise  of  such  authority,  but  there  is 


THE   SLAVE-TEADE  RESTRICTED  595 

the  implied  prohibition  resulting  from  the  fact  that  all  duty  on  the 
subject  is  imposed  on  a  different  branch  of  the  government. 

I  need  scarcely  enlarge  upon  the  familiar  principle  that  authority 
expressly  delegated  to  Congress  cannot  be  assumed  in  our  government 
by  the  treaty-making  power.  The  authority  to  lay  and  collect  taxes, 
to  coin  money,  to  declare  war,  etc.,  are  ready  examples,  and  you  can 
be  at  no  loss  for  argument  or  illustration  in  support  of  so  well  recog 
nized  a  principle. 

The  view  above  expressed  is  further  enforced  by  the  clause  in  the 
constitution  which  follows  immediately  that  which  has  already  been 
quoted.  The  second  paragraph  of  the  same  section  provides  that 
"  Congress  shall  also  have  power  to  prohibit  the  introduction  of 
slaves  from  any  State  not  a  member  of,  or  Territory  not  belonging  to, 
the  Confederacy. "  Here  there  is  no  direct  exercise  of  power  by  the 
States  which  formed  our  constitution,  but  an  express  delegation  to 
Congress.  It  is  thus  seen  that  while  the  States  were  willing  to  trust 
Congress  with  the  power  to  prohibit  the  introduction  of  African  slaves 
from  the  United  States,  they  were  not  willing  to  trust  it  with  the  power 
of  prohibiting  their  introduction  from  any  other  quarter,  but  deter 
mined  to  insure  the  execution  of  their  will  by  a  direct  interposition  of 
their  own  power. 

Moreover,  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  treaty-making  power  of 
this  government  to  prohibit  the  African  slave-trade,  in  addition  to 
the  insuperable  objections  above  suggested,  would  leave  open  the  im 
plication  that  the  same  power  has  authority  to  permit  such  introduc 
tion.  No  such  implication  can  be  sanctioned  by  us.  This  government 
unequivocally  and  absolutely  denies  its  possession  of  any  power  what 
ever  over  the  subject,  and  cannot  entertain  any  proposition  in  relation 
to  it. 

While  it  is  totally  beneath  the  dignity  of  our  government  to  give 
assurances  for  the  purpose  of  vindicating  itself  from  any  unworthy 
suspicion  of  its  good  faith  on  this  subject  that  may  be  disseminated 
by  the  agents  of  the  United  States,  it  may  not  be  improper  that  you 
should  point  out  the  superior  efficacy  of  our  constitutional  provision 
to  any  treaty  stipulations  we  could  make.  The  constitution  is  itself 
a  treaty  between  the  States  of  such  binding  force  that  it  cannot  be 
changed  or  abrogated  without  the  deliberate  and  concurrent  action  of 
nine  out  of  the  thirteen  States  that  compose  the  Confederacy.  A 
treaty  might  be  abrogated  by  a  party  temporarily  in  power  in  our 
country  at  the  sole  risk  of  disturbing  amicable  relations  with  a  foreign 
power.  The  constitution,  unless  by  an  approach  to  unanimity,  could 
not  be  changed  without  the  destruction  of  this  government  itself ;  and 
even  should  it  be  possible  hereafter  to  procure  the  consent  of  the  num 
ber  of  States  necessary  to  change  it,  the  forms  and  delays  designedly 
interposed  by  the  framers  to  check  rash  innovations  would  give  ample 


596        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

time  for  the  most  mature  deliberation  and  for  strenuous  resistance  on 
the  part  of  those  opposed  to  such  change. 

After  all  it  is  scarcely  the  part  of  wisdom  to  attempt  to  impose  re 
straint  on  the  actions  and  conduct  of  men  for  all  future  time.  The 
policy  of  the  Confederacy  is  as  fixed  and  immutable  on  this  subject  as 
the  imperfection  of  human  nature  permits  human  resolve  to  be.  No 
additional  agreements,  treaties,  or  stipulations  can  commit  these  States 
to  the  prohibition  of  the  African  slave-trade  with  more  binding  efficacy 
than  those  they  have  themselves  devised.  A  just  and  generous  con 
fidence  in  their  good  faith  on  this  subject  exhibited  by  friendly  powers 
will  be  far  more  efficacious  than  persistent  efforts  to  induce  this 
government  to  assume  the  exercise  of  powers  which  it  does  not  possess, 
and  to  bind  the  Confederacy  by  ties  which  would  have  no  constitutional 
validity.  We  trust,  therefore,  that  no  unnecessary  discussions  on  this 
matter  will  be  introduced  into  your  negotiations.  If,  unfortunately, 
this  reliance  should  prove  unfounded,  you  will  decline  continuing 
negotiations  on  your  side  and  transfer  them  to  us  at  home,  where  in 
such  event  they  could  be  conducted  with  greater  facility  and  advan 
tage,  under  the  direct  supervision  of  the  President. 

Very  respectfully,  etc. 


WEED  TO  BIGELOW 

,,     ,        „.     7  ALBANY,  Jan.  16,  1863. 

My  dear  Bigelow: 

We  are  in  a  bad  way.    I  wish  that  Ben  Butler  had  been 
elected  president,— or  that  even  now  he  was  in  Halleck's  place. 

There  is  little  or  no  hope  of  an  improved  cabinet,  for  when 
Caleb  Smith1  resigned  his  deputy  was  promoted! 

Ever  yours 


GEOEGE  BANCEOFT  TO  BIGELOW 

NEW  YOKK,  20  January,  1863. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

The  extract  of  a  letter  which  you  will  find  on  the  next  leaf  is 
from  a  distinguished  tory  ex-minister,  sure  to  be  a  memher  of 
1  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  and  from  the  State  of  Indiana. 


A  BRITISH  EX-MINISTER   TO  BANCROFT       597 

any  future  tory  ministry,  if  such  an  one  should  be  soon  formed. 
I  know  the  extract  to  be  genuine :  for  it  is  made  under  my  own 
eye  by  my  secretary  from  the  original.  If  France  wishes  to 
play  into  the  hands  of  a  nation  whose  statesmen  regard 
France  as  their  "ancient  enemy, "  it  will  be  very  unlike  what 
was  to  have  been  expected. 

I  have  now  a  favor  to  ask.  In  our  revolutionary  war,  Spain 
did  not  join  in  the  war  till  1779.  Before  engaging  in  it,  a  con 
vention  was  made  between  the  two  powers,  establishing  the 
principles,  conditions  and  object  of  the  war.  This  treaty  was 
exchanged  in  the  month  of  May  1779.  I  want  a  copy  of  that 
treaty.  I  have  the  correspondence  which  preceded  the  forma 
tion  of  the  convention.  Monday,  May  17,  1779,  Vergennes 
writes  to  Montmorin,  "J'ai  Phonneur  de  vous  envoyer  ci- 
jointe  la  convention,  ratifiee  par  sa  Majeste  Catholique.  Nous 
1'avons  echangee  la  semaine  derniere." 

It  is  of  this  convention  that  I  want  a  copy.  My  old  leave  to 
consult  and  copy  the  archives  was  full;  there  can,  I  think,  be 
no  objection  to  my  having  it.  Pray  see  to  it,  and  if  you  cannot 
manage  it,  speak  about  it  to  Mr.  Dayton  and  solicit  with  me 
and  for  me  his  good  offices.  On  politics  I  have  not  the  heart  to 
write  at  present.  What  is  to  come  I  can  guess,  but  like  not  to 
form  into  a  distinct  statement  my  forebodings. 

Best  regards  to  Mrs.  Bigelow. 

Faithfully  your  friend 


Extract  of  a  letter  from  a  British  ex-Minister  to  a  friend  in 
America,  November,  1862: 

The  newspapers  will  have  given  you  the  text  of  M.  Drouyn  'de 
Lhuys'  despatch  and  of  the  replies  of  Lord  Russell  and  Prince  Gort- 
schakoff.  It  is  reported  from  Paris  that  the  Emperor  has  promised 
Mr.  Slidell  to  propose  to  you  the  same  terms  pointed  out  in  the  des 
patch,  whether  England  and  Russia  concur  or  not,  as  soon  as  he  sees 
his  way  in  the  Mexican  affair.  I  give  you  this  only  as  a  rumor,  but 
if  it  is  correct  what  course  will  your  government  take  1  Will  it  accept 
the  alternative  of  war,  sooner  than  the  advice  which  the  Emperor 
will  certainly  be  ready  to  support  by  arms  ?  This  is  a  most  momentous 
question.  On  the  one  hand  feelings  of  national  pride  may  prompt  you 
to  resent  this  interference  at  any  cost ;  on  the  other  your  circumstances 


598        EETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

are  such  that  a  war  with  France  superadded  to  your  present  contest 
with  the  South  must  end  in  disaster.  We  in  England  shall  watch 
for  your  decision  with  the  greatest  interest  and  the  greatest  anxiety. 
We  think  you  are  now  engaged  in  a  hopeless  enterprise  and  our  wishes 
are  against  you ;  if  you  declared  war  on  us,  we  should  fight  with  you 
with  spirit  and  determination,  and  after  a  little  time  without  regret. 
But  if  we  should  see  you  over-matched  in  a  desperate  contest  with  our 
ancient  enemy,  and  still  gallantly  struggling  against  him,  whatever 
our  judgment  might  be,  our  hearts  would  surely  be  with  you.  Every 
time  the  stars  and  stripes  came  down  before  the  tri-color,  we  should 
feel  a  pang ;  every  advantage  gained  by  your  arms  would  fill  us  with 
joy. 


WILLIAM  S.  THAYEE  TO  BIGELOW 

ALEXANDKIA,  January  27, 1863. 
My  dear  Mr.  Bigelow: 

I  thank  you  for  Simonton's  letter  which  came  yesterday.  I 
return  it  today. 

Your  Emperor  has  been  playing  strange  pranks  in  carrying 
off  Egyptian  negroes  to  Mexico.  I  think  our  Viceroy's  death 
was  hastened  by  chagrin  at  the  row  occasioned  by  it. 

The  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  and  the  French  Consul 
General  assured  me  it  was  a  small  affair  of  500  negroes  or  so. 
I  told  His  Excellency  the  story  of  the  maid  who  excused  her 
frailty  by  saying  her  baby  was  a  very  little  one.  This  con 
verted  him.  He  had  never  heard  the  anecdote  before.  A  man 
could  make  his  fortune  here  by  telling  Joe  Millers  to  the 
Turks. 

I  have  not  time  to  write  more  though  I  have  much  to  say. 

Very  truly  yours. 


BIGELOW  TO  SEWAED 

Private 

PAEIS,  Feb.  6, 1863. 
Dear  Sir: 

Prince  Napoleon  reports  to  Gueroult,  editor  of  the  Opinion 
Nationals,  that  at  a  meeting  of  the  Emperor's  councillors  of 


POPULAR  SOVEREIGNTY  VS.  THE  DYNASTIC     599 

State  at  the  palace  the  other  day,  America  among  other  topics 
was  discussed.  At  the  close  of  many  pros  and  cons  from  par 
ties  present  the  Emperor  with  one  of  his  incomprehensible 
smiles  remarked:  "Si  le  Nord  est  victorieux  je  serai  heureux, 
si  le  Sud  est  victorieux  je  serai  enchanteV  n  The  anti-slavery 
meetings  in  England  are  having  their  effect  upon  the  govern 
ment  already.  I  enclose  an  evidence.  The  conductor  of 
Galignani,  Mr.  Bowes,  who  was  brought  to  my  office  one  day 
last  summer  by  Thackeray  and  to  whom  I  have  occasionally 
sent  articles  for  publication,  called  recently,  and  not  finding 
me,  sent  a  letter  which  you  will  find  enclosed.  That  paper  al 
ways  follows  the  government  and  hitherto,  in  spite  of  the 
social  relations  between  Bowes  a»d  myself,  has  been  exceed 
ingly  cruel  on  the  North.  The  present  advance  on  his  part, 
therefore,  is  not  without  a  significance.  The  Paris  correspon 
dent  of  the  London  Post  also  came  to  my  house  on  Wednesday 
evening  evidently  disposed  to  be  instructed.  He  says  these 
intrigues  in  England  merely  express  the  public  sentiment  of 
the  mass  of  English  people— that  there  are  about  a  dozen  per 
sons  who  by  their  position  and  influence  over  the  organs  of 
public  opinion  have  produced  all  the  bad  feeling  and  treach 
erous  conduct  of  England  towards  America.  They  are  people 
who  as  members  of  the  government  in  times  past  have  been 
bullied  by  the  U.  S.  and  compelled  to  submit  to  humiliation. 
They  knew  our  strength  and  thought  our  statesmen  used  it 
brutally  ;  they  are  not  entirely  ignorant  that  the  class  who  are 
now  trying  to  overthrow  the  government  were  mainly  respon 
sible  for  that  brutality,  but  they  think  we  are  as  a  nation  dis 
posed  to  bully  and  they  are  disposed  to  assist  in  any  policy 
that  may  dismember  and  weaken  us.  These  scars  of  wounded 
pride  however  have  been  carefully  concealed  from  the  public, 
who  therefore  cannot  now  be  readily  made  to  see  why,  when 
the  President  had  distinctly  made  the  issue  between  slave 
labor  and  free  labor,  that  England  should  not  go  with  the 
North.  He  says  these  dozen  people  who  rule  England  hate  us 
cordially,  that  he  knows. 

I  confess,  bad  as  things  look  at  home,  I  derive  great  en 
couragement  from  the  recent  popular  demonstrations  in  Eng 
land.  When  Louis  Napoleon  found  the  Derby  Ministry 
intriguing  with  Austria  and  dynastic  Europe  against  him,  he 

1  "If  the  North  is  victorious  I  shall  Ibe  happy  j  if  the  South  is  victorious  I 
shall  be  enchanted." 


600        RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

struck  an  alliance  with  the  people  through  Cohden  and  Derby. 
His  Commercial-Treaty  Negotiations  made  Cobden  a  power 
in  England,  and  for  the  first  time,  I  believe,  in  her  history 
England  sent  a  commoner  as  a  plenipotentiary  to  France  and 
called  two  radicals  into  the  Ministry.  Cobden  did  not  lose  his 
power  until  Napoleon  had  entirely  disarmed  his  enemies  in 
England  and  had  placed  the  actual  Ministry  in  a  position 
where  he  could  unhorse  it  at  a  moment's  notice.  We  ought  to 
take  a  leaf  from  the  Emperor's  book.  We  should  strive  to 
strike  an  alliance  with  the  masses  of  Great  Britain,  and  I  have 
imagined  the  path  was  being  smoothed  for  it  by  this  popular 
movement  against  slavery;  one  of  those  issues  which  serve 
admirably  as  a  means  of  organizing  the  people  and  preparing 
them  for  more  specific  action  when  properly  led.  A  good 
leader  of  the  Anti-slavery  party  there  may  soon  hold  the  bal 
ance  of  power  between  two  great  parties.  Is  there  nothing  you 
can  do:  nothing  the  President  or  Congress  can  do  to  foster 
this  organization  and  direct  it  to  good  ends! 

After  all,  this  struggle  of  ours  both  at  home  and  abroad  is 
but  a  struggle  between  the  principle  of  popular  government 
and  government  by  a  privileged  class.  The  people  therefore 
all  the  world  over  are  in  a  species  of  solidarity  which  it  is  our 
duty  and  interest  to  cultivate  to  the  utmost. 

I  get  sometimes  very  much  depressed  about  things  at  home. 
I  begin  to  fear  that  the  spirit  of  the  North  is  beginning  to  yield 
to  the  conviction  that  the  Union  is  not  worth  to  the  North  what 
it  is  costing.  The  political  divisions,  the  harsh  criticisms,  and 
other  multiplying  evidences  of  discord  leave  little  hope  of  a 
restoration  of  the  Union  unless  the  present  campaign  is  illus 
trated  by  some  signal  success- of  our  arms  in  the  field  of  which 
it  is  no  longer  easy  to  be  hopeful.  When  one  sees  such  men  as 
McDowell  and  Fitz-John  Porter  and  McClellan  driven  from 
the  army,  the  Senate  wasting  its  energies  in  efforts  to  drive 
you  from  the  State  Department,  and  members  of  Congress 
more  solicitous  about  the  dividends  of  their  one  horse  county 
banks  than  for  the  credit  of  the  country,  I  feel  as  if  there  were 
elements  of  discord  at  work  among  us  which  must  result  in  the 
ruin  of  the  government  unless  it  is  strengthened  among  the 
people  by  some  early  and  decisive  success. 

Excuse  this  long  and  unprofitable  discourse  and  believe  me 

Very  truly  yours 


A  PROFESSOR  INTERVIEWS  THE  EMPEROR      601 


BENJAMIN  TO  SLIDELL 

DEPARTMENT  OP  STATE, 

Feb.  7th,  1863. 

I  add  hereto  an  extract  from  a  letter  recently  received  by  me  from 
a  gentleman  who  is  a  professor  in  the  University  of  Virginia,  and  is 
represented  by  all  of  whom  I  have  made  inquiry  as  being  of  the 
highest  character  and  respectability.  It  is  a  very  singular  statement, 
and  you  ought  not  to  remain  ignorant  of  a  fact  which  may  serve  as  a 
clew  to  unravel  any  secret  designs  that  may  be  entertained  in  France. 


EXTEACT 

Three  years  ago  I  had  the  honor  of  an  hour's  conversation  with  the 
Emperor  of  the  French  at  the  Villa  Eugenie  in  Biarritz.  After  having 
exhausted  all  the  little  information  I  could  afford  him,  draining  me 
a  sec,  and  leaving  me,  after  all,  under  the  impression  that  he  knew 
more  of  all  the  subjects  on  which  he  had  examined  me  than  I  did  my 
self,  he  turned  with  peculiar  and  undisguised  eagerness  to  the  Mexican 
question.  I  had  then  just  returned  from  Cuba,  and  fancied  I  had 
thoroughly  informed  myself  as  to  the  condition  of  things  there  and 
in  the  Gulf.  I  was  soon  undeceived.  He  knew  the  very  number  of 
guns  in  the  Morro,  the  sums  the  United  States  had  spent  on  the  forti 
fications  in  Florida,  the  exports  and  imports  of  Galveston  and  Mata- 
moras,  in  short  everything  which  well-informed  local  agents  could 
have  reported  to  an  experienced  statesman,  eager  for  information.  He 
examined  me  again  on  Texas  and  its  population,  the  disposition  of  the 
French  residents,  the  tendencies  of  the  German  Colonists,  the  feeling 
on  the  Mexican  frontier.  Twice,  I  remember  well,  he  repeated :  "La 
Louisiane,  n'est-ce  pas  qu'elle  est  Francaise  au  fond?"  At  last  he 
turned  to  the  colonies  and  then  stated  in  round  terms,  finding  that  I 
quoted  from  his  "Idees  Napoliennes, ' '  the  well-known  words,  "Eh 
bien,  il  f aut  reconstruire  1  'Empire  la-bas. ' ' 

After  having  received  this  cue  to  his  questions  and  the  unexpected 
interest  he  deigned  to  show  in  so  insignificant  a  person,  I  was  enabled 
better  to  follow  his  idea  and  more  fully  to  answer  his  questions.  From 
what  I  could  then  gather,  I  was  fully  persuaded  that  he  proposed  to 
seek  in  Mexico  a  compensation  for  the  lost  colonies  in  the  West  Indies, 
which,  he  said,  could  not  be  recovered  sans  nous  brouiller  avec  nos 
allies.  He  insisted  upon  it  that  France  must  sooner  or  later  have  a 


602        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

pied-a-terre  on  the  Florida  coast  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  her 
commerce  in  the  Gulf,  for,  he  added,  "Nous  ne  voulons  pas  un  autre 
Gibraltar  de  ce  cote-la."  Finally,  I  think,  he  revolved  in  his  mind 
the  possibility  of  recovering  a  foothold  in  Louisiana,  although  he  never 
stated  this  purpose  in  so  many  words,  perhaps  from  a  courteous  regard 
to  my  position  there. 

There  were,  of  course,  other  points  mentioned  in  a  conversation  car 
ried  on  with  his  usual  rapidity  of  thought  and  marvelous  conciseness 
of  expression,  but  I  venture  here  only  to  mention  those  I  can  state  in 
precise  terms,  as  having  a  direct  bearing  on  the  question  of  French 
policy  in  the  South. 

I  beg  leave  to  add  that  his  remarks  made  so  deep  an  impression  on 
my  mind  that  I  jotted  down  the  salient  points  for  my  own  guidance 
and  as  interesting  points  d'appui  for  future  researches.  Upon  my 
return  to  Paris  I  had  the  opportunity  of  mentioning  some  of  these  to 
M.  Drouyn  de  Lhuys,  whom  I  have  the  advantage  of  knowing  person 
ally.  He  seemed  to  be  not  only  fully  aware  of  the  peculiar  views  of 
the  Emperor,  but  added  much  to  explain  them.  His  point  of  view  was, 
of  course,  a  different  one,  and,  as  he  was  then  out  of  office,  perhaps 
more  decided  than  it  would  be  at  this  moment.  Although  these  views 
and  expressions  are  now  not  three  years  old,  I  need  not  suggest  to 
you  how  tenacious  the  Emperor  is  in  his  long-prepared  purposes,  es 
pecially  when  they  concern  his  openly  avowed  plan  of  recovering  all 
that  can  be  recovered  of  the  great  Empire. 


BIGELOW  TO  E.  D.  MOKGAN 

Feby.  20,  1863. 
My  dear  Mr.  Morgan: 

Though  you  have  treated  me  pretty  shabbily  for  the  past 
year  I  cannot  help  tendering  you  my  congratulations  upon 
your  election  to  the  Senate.  I  shall  feel  very  sorry  for  King 
if  he  wanted  to  be  rechosen,  but  if  he  had  to  have  a  successor 
now,  the  lot  could  not  have  fallen  more  fortunately.  Since  the 
issue  of  the  Prest.  proclamation  I  have  reed,  no  more  auspi 
cious  news,  all  things  considered,  than  reached  us  last  night— 
your  election  which  signifies  a  great  many  good  things  if  I 
understand  it  aright,  and  the  approval  of  the  President's 


SEWARD'S  DIAGNOSIS  OF  THE  REBELLION       603 

proclamation  by  our  legislature  which  signifies  a  great  many 
more.  I  take  it  for  granted  it  must  have  passed  without 
serious  opposition,  which  shows  a  better  temper  in  the  legis 
lature  than  I  at  first  apprehended,  and  will  have  a  moral  effect 
which  will  be  felt  throughout  the  world.  Now  if  you  can  get 
the  Mississippi  open  I  shall  have  no  farther  anxiety. 

I  hope  you  will  find  a  little  leisure  while  you  are  in  the  tran 
sition  state  from  Governor  to  Senator  to  let  me  hear  a  few 
words  from  you.  They  will  help  me  to  forget  how  I  have  been 
neglected  heretofore. 

Yours  very  truly 


SEWARD  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  Feby.  25, 1863. 
My  dear  Sir: 

I  thank  you  for  your  note  of  the  6th  inst. 

What  you  tell  me  goes  to  confirm  the  opinion  built  on  other 
advices,  that  a  reaction  in  our  favor  has  begun  in  Europe,  for 
which  I  thank  God.  It  was  time.  Did  it  ever  occur  to  you  that 
the  advent  of  this  administration  was  a  stage  of  a  pacific 
revolution  against  an  erroneous  national  system  of  politics; 
that  the  rebellion  was  a  counter  revolution ;  that  foreign  sym 
pathies  with  it  were  threatening  to  make  it  effective  or  at  least 
indicated  the  possession  of  a  strength  that  might  alarm  us? 
Well,  a  reaction  in  favor  of  the  original  political  movement  in 
Europe  is  an  indication  of  a  check  to  the  counter  revolutionary 
one.  You  may  look,  I  think  now,  for  a  similar  reaction  here. 
On  the  whole,  things  are  hopeful.  Eepublics,  especially  federal 
ones,  must  have  agitations.  There  must  be  currents  and 
counter  currents  of  opinion.  But  there  probably  will  be  no 
one  of  them  strong  enough  to  swamp  so  staunch  a  ship. 

Faithfully  yours, 


604        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 


SEWARD  TO  BIGELOW 

DEPAKTMENT  OF  STATE, 

WASHINGTON,  Feb.  28,  1863. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

I  have  several  of  your  kind  letters.  It  would  be  a  pity  for 
Cluseret's1  sake  to  have  his  letter  published.  But  the  temper 
of  this  Country  is  getting  sound  and  will  not  suffer  apprehen 
sions  for  such  or  other  foreign  matters  to  disturb  it.  Do  not 
lose  your  faith  in  our  countrymen,  they  have  just  found  out 
that  there  is  more  patience  required  than  they  supposed.  They 
will  show  it.  Congress  is  doing  nobly  and  all  things  are  well. 

Faithfully  yours 

After  the  declension  of  what  Mr.  Bright  called  the  "silly 
proposition  of  the  French, "  the  Emperor  sought  alone  to  ap 
proach  the  Government  of  the  United  States  and  sent  a  dis 
patch  on  the  9th  of  January  to  that  effect.  It  was  answered 
in  three  days  by  Mr.  Seward  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Dayton  of  the 
6th  of  February,  1863. 

With  a  few  courteous  introductory  words  as  to  the  French 
Minister's  meaning,  Mr.  Seward  pointed  out  the  fact  that  the 
dispatch  was  nothing  less  than  a  proposition  to  our  Govern 
ment  to  enter  into  diplomatic  discussion  with  insurgents  as  to 
whether  the  country  should  not  be  delivered  over  to  disunion. 

He  admitted  that  conferences  must  attend  or  precede  pacifi 
cation,  but  concluded  by  saying : 

The  Congress  of  the  United  States  furnishes  the  constitutional 
forum  for  debates  between  the  alienated  parties.  Senators  and  Repre 
sentatives  from  the  loyal  portion  of  the  people  are  there  already ;  and 
seats  are  vacant  and  inviting  Senators  and  Representatives  of  this 
discontented  party,  who  may  be  constitutionally  sent  there  from  the 
States  involved  in  the  insurrection.  Such  conferences  between  the 
alienated  parties  may  be  said  to  have  already  begun.  Maryland,  Vir- 

1  Gustave  Paul  Cluseret  was  a  graduate  from  Saint-Cyr  in  1843.  In  1855  he 
was  made  captain  and  took  part  in  the  Crimean  campaign.  He  was  subse 
quently  sent  to  Algiers,  and  a  little  later  came  to  the  United  States.  During 
our  Civil  War  he  obtained  the  rank  of  general  in  the  Federal  Army.  He  sub 
sequently  became  editor  of  a  journal  in  Paris  and  belonged  to  the  Ouvrier 
Socialiste  group  of  politicians. 


W.  H.  RUSSELL  AND  THE  WAR  DEPARTMENT     605 

ginia,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  Missouri— States  which  are  claimed 
by  the  insurgents— are  already  represented  in  Congress;  and  submit 
ting  with  perfect  freedom,  and  in  a  proper  spirit,  their  advice  upon 
the  course  best  calculated  to  bring  about  a  firm,  lasting,  and  honorable 
peace. 

Before  Congress  adjourned  on  March  3,  resolutions  were 
introduced  regretting  that  the  war  had  fallen  so  heavily  on  the 
laboring  people  in  Europe,  also  expressing  disappointment 
that  Europe  should  encourage  a  rebellious  government  having 
slavery  for  its  keystone,  and  stating  that  the  war  would  be 
prosecuted  until  the  Rebellion  was  suppressed.  The  President 
was  requested  to  send  a  copy  of  the  same  to  the  ministers  of 
foreign  countries,  to  be  transmitted  by  them  to  their  govern 
ments. 


W.  H.  KUSSELL  TO  BTGELOW 

HAVRE,  SUSSEX  HOTEL, 

February  25, 1863. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

I  am  exceedingly  grateful  to  you  for  the  time  and  matter  of 
your  remembrance  which  followed  me  in  its  substantial  shape 
to  this  place  where  I  have  arrived  on  sick  certificate,  a  con 
gestion  of  various  valuable  mechanical  arrangements  in  my 
inside,  caused,  say  the  dirty  doctors,  by  a  Turkish  bath,  having 
prostrated  me  pro  tern.  Imprimis  let  me  say  I  am  not  at  all 
pleased  with  my  diary  in  the  States,  because  I  was  compelled 
to  omit  the  best  part  of  it  owing  to  a  mistake  of  the  publishers 
and  to  cut  out  186  pages ;  but  over  and  above  that,  the  form  of 
a  diary  is  quite  destructive  to  any  sustained  interest  and  I  will 
never  be  a  slave  to  my  daily  nonsense  and  hasty  observations 
again.  However  there  is  no  chance  in  this  instance  as  the 
time  did  not  admit  of  my  doing  anything  but  dictating  from 
the  actual  diary  word  for  word  as  fast  as  I  could  and  some 
times  tearing  out  the  sheets  themselves  and  with  all  that, 
though  I  overshot  the  mark,  the  publishers  swear  they  were 
late,  in  spite  of  the  success  of  the  book,  for  I  have  to  say  it 
has  been  successful.  I  must  own  I  felt  more  hurt  than  I  can  or 
cared  well  to  say  at  being  refused  leave  to  go  with  McClellan, 


606        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

as  I  was  most  anxious  to  show  it  was  not  my  fault  that  Bull 
Eun  No.  1  ended  with  a  panic,  and  I  can't  help  saying  there 
was  no  candor  nor  generosity  in  my  treatment  by  the  American 
press.  I  believe  in  my  heart,  however,  that  I  do  not  entertain 
the  smallest  unkindly  feeling  towards  a  single  citizen  of  the 
United  States  therefore  &  therefor,  except  perhaps  that  evil- 
eyed  old  Scotchman  of  the  Herald  and  Mr.  Eaymond,  N.  Y.  T., 
who  when  my  back  was  turned,  with  wilful  falsehood,  wrote 
that  I  had  been  turned  out  of  the  States  for  stock  jobbing. 

The  Missis  is  pretty  well  only.  I  am  ditto.  Alice  growing 
very  pretty— not  .quite  so  wild.  Boys  thriving.  Alberta 
spoiled.  And  now  let  me  say  a  kind  word  to  my  good  friend 
Mrs.  Bigelow  and  to  'the  children  by  way  of  introduction  to  the 
speeches  I  hope  to  make  soon  to  you  all  in  person.  Assure  her 
of  my  wife's  constant  attachment  and  of  the  regard  with 
which  I  am  hers  and  Yourg  alwayg 


SEWARD  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  March  3,  1863. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

I  have  your  note  of  the  13th.  It  may  be  possible  to  found  a 
new  France  on  this  continent,  as  the  speculators  proposed.  It 
is  just  a  hundred  and  one  years,  however,  since  it  was  settled 
that  no  foreign  dominion  can  be  founded  here. 

The  wheel  of  American  civilization  is  grinding  on  its 
gudgeon— that  is  all.  It  is  not  broken,  and  once  repaired  it 
will  move  faster  and  stronger  than  ever. 

Faithfully  yours 


GEOEGE  BANCROFT  TO  BIGELOW 

NEW  YOKK,  March  6,  1863. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

Your  letter  of  the  16th  February  and  its  enclosures  came  to 
hand  yesterday,  and  I  will  not  let  a  steamer  pass  without 


A  ROTTEN  GOVERNMENT  607 

thanking  you  for  your  prompt  and  most  successful  interposir 
tion  in  my  behalf.  Say  everything  that  is  civil  and  that  you 
think  proper  to  M.  Drouyn  de  Lhuys  from  me,  who  has  really 
obliged  me  very  much  by  his  granting  our  request  so  pleas 
antly.  The  document  was  not  only  important  to  me  as  some 
thing  that  needed  at  any  rate  to  be  known,  but  it  is  in  itself  of 
the  greatest  historical  interest,  and  is  just  the  light  I  needed,, 
to  clear  up  the  complicated  situations  of  France,  the  United 
States,  and  Spain  during  our  revolution.1 

I  was  sorry  to  write  to  you  what  seemed  to  you  gloomy.  I 
have  no  gloom  in  my  own  mind,  but  L  see  things  as  they  are. 
We  are  placed  where  we  can  succeed  only  by  putting  on  our 
side  the  labor  and  the  efforts  of  the  colored  men :  and  we  have 
not  virtue  enough  to  be  willing  to  give  the  black  man  a  chance. 
The  power  of  the  pro-slavery  party  in  this  city  is  overwhelm 
ingly  great;  and  I  am  amazed  at  the  impudence  with  which 
under  the  lion-skin  of  democracy  and  an  ever  renewed  and  pas 
sionate  appeal  to  the  antipathy  of  races,  men  go  before  the 
people  (our  country  people)  as  candidates  for  office  with  the 
most  unblushing  avowals  of  warring  against  the  war.  Then, 
too,  there  has  been  a  very  lax  holding  of  the  reins  by  the  presi 
dent  ;  a  want  of  discernment  of  merit ;  and  a  sad  exhibition  of 
political  influences  of  the  smallest  kind  in  the  distribution  of 
high  employment  in  the  army.  Something  may  be  said  by  way 
of  excuse.  When  Mr.  Lincoln  came  into  power  he  knew  not 
what  to  lean  on ;  everything  was  rotten  from  the  bench  of  the 

1  Preface  to  Bancroft's  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  IX,  published  in 
1866  (Boston:  Little,  Brown  &  Co.) : 

"One  volume  more  will  complete  the  American  revolution,  including  the 
negotiations  for  peace  in  1782.  For  that  volume  the  materials  are  collected 
and  arranged,  and  it  will  be  completed  and  published  without  any  unnecessary 
delay.  A  single  document  only,  but  that  a  very  important  one,  had  been  want 
ing;  on  my  request  for  it  through  my  friend  John  Bigelow,  our  minister  at 
Paris,  copies  of  it  were  ordered  for  me  with  the  utmost  courtesy  and  prompt 
ness  by  M.  Drouyn  de  Lhuys.  That  volume  will  bring  into  the  field  in  direct 
action  Spain,  France  and  Great  Britain,  as  well  as  the  United  States.  I  shall 
endeavor  to  treat  them  all  with  equal  impartiality,  and  I  do  not  doubt  of  find 
ing  a  corresponding  disposition  in  my  countrymen.  I  hope  to  present  in  a  just 
aspect  those  who  rendered  great  services  to  the  country,  unmindful  of  any  per 
sonal  differences  which  may  have  grown  up  among  them.  Especially  the 
documents  respecting  the  preliminaries  of  peace  of  which  I  have  acquired 
copies  are  so  complete  that  I  trust  I  may  be  able  to  disentangle  the  confusion 
which  has  grown  out  of  judgments  founded  upon  rumor  and  imperfect  ma 
terials,  and  to  set  down  with  exactness  the  respective  parts  of  all  who  were 
employed  in  the  pacification,  without  impairing  the  merits  of  any  one.  .  .  ," 


608        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Supreme  Court,  to  the  clerks  in  every  department  of  the  gov 
ernment,  and  even  to  the  officers  of  the  army  and  navy.  The 
majority  of  the  West  Point  officers  were  either  with  the  Seces 
sionists  openly  in  their  service,  or  secretly  sympathized  with 
them.  There  were  very,  very  few  who  from  the  beginning  saw 
the  character  of  the  strife ;  and  poor  Lyon,  who  was  one  of  the 
first  to  do  it,  perished,  almost  in  the  beginning.  Patterson, 
Fitz-John  Porter,  and  others  I  could  name,  helped  the  enemy 
more  than  they  helped  us.  You  may  remember  a  proclamation 
where  the  general  promised  to  suspend  hostilities  and  assist  in 
putting  down  the  negroes  if  they  should  rise.  In  this  way,  all 
our  efforts  have  been  applied  too  tardily,  and  time  has  been 
given  the  South  to  prepare.  Their  officers  are  terribly  in 
earnest:  and  that  earnestness,  often  excited  against  faltering 
opponents,  has  been  very  effective.  Considering  the  waste  of 
men  and  money  we  ought  to  have  crushed  the  rebellion  long 
ago,  but  now  the  end  of  the  war,  in  my  judgment,  is  not  near : 
and  cannot  come,  till  the  resoluteness  of  the  South  teaches  the 
North  to  have  some  decent  respect  for  the  black  man.  I  see  no 
remedy  but  from  a  social  revolution:  and  the  North  shrinks 
from  adopting  that  measure,  or  accepts  it  only  with  misgiv 
ings  and  latent  protestations.  Congress  refused  (at  least 
omitted)  to  aid  Missouri  in  throwing  off  slavery:  and  by  that 
neglect  lost  a  precious  opportunity  to  redeem  that  state  and 
hold  it  irrevocably  as  a  free  one.  But  I  am  sure  we  shall 
triumph  in  the  end,  though  we  have  got  to  do  much  in  the  way 
of  improvement  before  we  shall  deserve  to  do  so. 

I  renew  to  you  my  thanks  for  your  attention  to  my  request 
about  the  Treaty;  you  have  done  a  very  important  service. 
Best  regards  to  Mrs.  Bigelow.  I  wish  you  would  find  time  now 
and  then  to  write.  We  Americans  very  generally  regret  the 
imbroglio  of  France  with  Mexico. 

I  am  ever,  dear  Bigelow, 

Very  faithfully  yours 


[P.S.]  There  are  but  three  possible  terminations  to  this  war. 
1st.  Let  the  Southern  states  rule  and  come  back  with  Jeff. 
Davis. 
2nd.  Let  them  go. 


"IMBECILITY  SUPREME   IN  WASHINGTON"    609 

3rd.  Eeduce  them  by  a  complete  overthrow  of  their  system 
of  slavery. 

At  present  there  is  chaos  of  opinion  and  of  parties. 

The  North  refuses  to  carry  on  the  war  to  subjugation  by  the 
use  of  white  men  alone :  and  it  also  refuses  to  use  the  blacks. 
By  degrees  if  the  war  lasts,  slavery  will  be  worn  out :  but  it  is 
very  strong  yet. 


WEED  TO  BIGELOW 

ALBANY,  March  15,  1863. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

Your  letter  comforts  me.  It  teaches  me  how  little  indi 
viduals  can  do  to  help  or  hinder  events.  I  will  "try"  to  hold 
fast  the  hope  that  all  will  work  for  good.  But  this  requires 
large  Faith.  So  far  we  have  only  been  trying  "how  not  to  do 
it."  Imbecility  is  supreme  at  Washington. 

I  am  laboring  to  smooth  the  way  for  carrying  the  Conscrip 
tion  Law  into  effect,  else  we  shall  be  without  an  army.  I  am 
also  endeavoring  to  counteract  a  conspiracy  which  seeks  to 
take  the  Western  States  into  the  Southern  Confederacy.  It  is 
formidable.  The  argument  is,  that  New  England  gets  rich 
by  manufactures,  New  York  with  contracts,  and  that  the 
burthens  of  the  war  fall  on  the  West.  That  the  Mississippi 
Valley  railroads  consume  their  substance  by  enormous  freight 
rates.  So  you  see  we  are  beset  on  all  sides. 

Have  you  discovered  that  while  negroes  in  the  slave  states 
show  no  general  disposition  to  be  free,  those  whom  we  free 
show  as  little  disposition  to  fight!  So  that  after  all  the  row 
about  authorizing  "Black  regiments"  when  you  call  spirits 
they  won't  come !  I  suggested  this  idea  months  ago,  privately, 
but  it  was  scouted. 

Our  Generals  are  quarrelling  because  they  have  no  respect 
for,  or  fear  of  superiors. 

Charleston  would  have  been  taken  a  month  ago  if  old  Welles 
had  been  in  Hartford,  and  a  true  man  in  his  place. 

I  have  just  read  with  interest  the  Debate  in  Parliament  on 


610        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Polish  affairs.    These  things  promise  to  keep  Europe  occupied. 
Palmerston  made  a  manly  speech.    The  old  fellow  is  a  trump. 

Though  you  continue  to  enjoy  your  liberty  longer  than  1 
thought  you  would,  if  you  were  home  I  should  press  you  hard 
to  put  on  editorial  harness  again. 

Opdyke  and  Field  are  endeavoring  to  get  Barney  removed. 

It  is  shameful  to  send  Clay1  back  to  Eussia  but  it  was  done 
to  get  rid  of  him. 

Greeley,  Field,  Noyes  and  Opdyke  expected,  to  the  last  hour, 
to  be  senator.  We  offered  to  re-elect  King  if  they  would  con 
sent.  King  will  go  abroad,  if  he  consents. 

Truly  yours 


JOHN  BEIGHT  TO  BIGELOW 

Private 

EOCHDALE,  March  16, 1863. 
My  dear  Mr.  Bigelow: 

It  is  nearly  a  month  since  I  received  your  interesting  letter. 
It  has  remained  without  a  reply  for  too  long  a  time— the  death 
of  my  father-in-law  called  me  away  for  more  than  a  week— a 
journey  on  business  into  Wales  stole  another  week— then  I 
was  shut  up  ill  for  a  week,  unable  to  attend  to  any  correspon 
dence,  suffering  from  a  desperate  cold  and  cough— and  only 
yesterday,  on  reading  your  letter  over  again,  I  found  you  had 
asked  me  some  questions  to  which  I  ought  long  ago  to  have 
sent  you  such  answers  as  I  was  able  to  send. 

It  is  a  general  estimate  that  there  are  7  millions  of  men  of 

1  Cassius  Marcellus  Clay,  here  referred  to  by  Mr.  Weed,  was  bom  in  Ken 
tucky  in  1810  and  became  notorious  rather  than  famous  by  espousing  the  cause 
of  Free  Soil,  Free  Labor  and  Free  Men  in  a  slave  State.  Such  a  rare  demon 
stration  naturally  secured  for  anything  he  might  say  on  these  topics  a  wide 
circulation  throughout  the  Northern  press  and  was  worth  to  him  some  votes 
in  different  conventions  for  President  and  Vice-President  and  an  appointment 
by  President  Lincoln  as  Minister  Plenipotentiary  to  Russia  in  1861-62  and  a 
reappointment  in  1863.  He  lived  to  a  very  advanced  age,  the  later  years  of 
which  were  marked  by  such  eccentricities  as  no  doubt  fully  warranted  Mr. 
Weed's  remark  that  he  was  sent  back  to  Russia  to  be  rid  of  him.  He  was  a 
brave  man,  and,  with  due  allowance  for  all  his  infirmities,  a  man  of  noble 
ideals. 


THE   COURSE   OF  THE  BRITISH  GOVERNMENT    611 

21  years  of  age  and  upward  in  the  United  Kingdom.  Of  these 
about  one  million  alone  can  vote— there  are  more  than  a  mil 
lion  names  on  the  registers  of  electors— but  as  many  are  on 
more  than  once— that  is  having  a  vote  for  the  borough  in  which 
they  live  and  the  county  also,  a  considerable  deduction  must 
be  made,  and  I  believe  that  not  more  than  one  million  persons 
in  the  United  Kingdom  could  vote  at  any  one  general  election. 

As  to  the  privileged  order.  The  House  of  Lords  alone  may 
be  said  to  be  strictly  privileged.— its  members  chiefly  sit  by 
hereditary  title,  and  that  is  their  chief  privilege. 

The  Bishops  are  not  there  by  hereditary  claim— and  certain 
Scotch  and  Irish  peers  are  there  as  representatives  of  the 
Scotch  and  Irish  Peerage,  which  is  distinct  from  the  peerage 
of  the  United  Kingdom.  I  suppose  the  families  of  the  House 
of  Lords  are  about  400  in  number— as  a  rule  they  do  not 
meddle  in  trade,  and  they  have  a  grerat  influence  in  securing 
patronage  for  their  sons  and  relations— and  generally-  among 
the  Baronets  and  other  territorial  proprietors,  not  being  peers, 
there  is  a  great  tendency  to  look  to  government  appointments 
for  a  career.  Our  system  consists  of  these  great  families,  with 
great  landed  properties,  of  the  State  Church,  which  is  almost 
entirely  in  their  hands,  and  devoted  to  their  interests,  and  of 
the  large  class  chiefly  derived  from  the  territorial  ranks  who 
fill  the  best  offices  under  the  government,  and  in  all  the  ser 
vices  of  the  state.  In  the  House  of  Commons  a  large  propor 
tion  of  the  members,  more  than  one  third  of  them  I  think,  are 
directly  connected  with  members  of  the  House  of  Lords,  and 
thus  the  whole  thing  is  so  interwoven,  that  it  makes  a  fabric 
so  strong  that  probably  only  some  great  convulsion  will  ever 
break  through  it. 

There  is  a  little  book,  price  6d,  published  in  London,  with 
lists  of  the  House  of  Parliament;  it  is  called  "Whittaker's 
Parliamentary  Guide."  I  think  you  will  find  it  at  Galignani's 
— I  am  sorry  I  have  but  one  here  or  I  would  send  it  to  you. 

I  am  very  glad  to  rejoice  with  you  at  the  change  of  senti 
ment  manifested  in  this  country  on  American  affairs.  It  is 
probably  not  so  much  a  change  of  sentiment  as  expression  of 
sentiment  hitherto  concealed.  The  people  have  never  been 
wrong.  The  ' '  Upper "  class  has  its  newspapers  in  London 
always  ready  to  speak  out,  and  they  make  such  a  noise  that  for 
a  time  nobody  else  can  be  heard.  Besides  a  minority  is  gener- 


612        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

ally  more  active,  and  is  often  for  a  time  mistaken  for  a  ma 
jority. 

I  have  been  asked  to  take  the  chair  at  a  great  meeting  to  be 
held  on  the  26th  inst.  in  St.  James '  Hall,  London.  It  is  called 
by  members  of  Trades  Unions  and  will  be  a  remarkable  and 
influential  meeting  of  the  artisan  class.  I  have  agreed  to  be 
there,  and  only  hope  that  I  may  not  be  hoarse  and  unable  to 
say  anything.  I  shall  not  make  a  long  speech— for  indeed  I 
have  little  that  is  new  to  say— and  the  speakers  will  chiefly  be 
of  the  artisans  themselves.  Everywhere  great  meetings  go  in 
favor  of  the  North,  and  the  "Secesh"  party  has  sunk  into  for- 
getfulness.  This  is  important  in  its  bearing  on  our  newspa 
pers,  and  on  Government  and  Parliament— as  well  as  on 
opinion  and  parties  North  and  South  in  the  states.  In  the 
House  of  Commons  there  is  no  disposition  to  debate  the  Amer 
ican  question.  I  suspect  the  ' l  Secesh"  members  think  it  better 
to  be  quiet,  as  they  fear  any  action  here  will  tend  to  unite  the 
North,  and  lately  I  think  they  have  hoped  more  from  northern 
discord  than  from  English  or  European  sympathy.  I  do  not 
think  people  here  are  satisfied  about  the  building  of  Floridas 
and  Aldbamas  in  our  ports,  and  I  do  not  wonder  at  the  irrita 
tion  caused  in  New  York  by  the  depredations  of  the  pirates. 

I  am  surprised  that  your  navy  have  not  managed  to  meet 
with  either  of  those  vessels,  and  hope  they  may  soon  be  more 
successful. 

On  the  whole,  the  American  news  is  more  favorable  to  your 
cause.  The  spirit  of  discord  and  of  hatred  to  the  government 
seems  laid  in  part  for  the  present,  and  I  hope  a  more  united 
policy  will  be  seen  henceforth.  But  your  commanders  do 
stupid  things,— they  send  rams  and  ironclad  vessels  in  your 
great  river,  to  run  the  forts  at  Vicksburg  and  then  to  allow 
the  South  to  capture  them— at  this  rate  they  will  soon  have  a 
formidable  squadron  on  the  Mississippi  built  in  northern  ports 
and  paid  for  by  northern  money!  The  most  recent  tidings 
from  the  states,  last  week  and  this,  tends  to  support  our  cotton 
markets,  as  it  leads  to  the  impression  that  the  war  will  go  on 
to  the  subjugation  of  the  South  or  the  exhaustion  of  the  North. 
I  have  never  doubted  this ;  but  opinion  here  has  differed  from 
me.  The  influence  of  the  lies  of  the  Times,  the  lies  of  "  Secesh" 
everywhere,  and  the  wishes  of  the  most  interested,  have  caused 
men  to  believe  that  the  war  could  not  last  long— and  therefore 


FREEDOM  OR  SLAVERY  FOR  A  CONTINENT      613 

at  these  high  prices,  few  have  dared  to  enter  into  any  consider 
able  transactions. 

Now,  however,  a  different  feeling  is  becoming  prevalent,  and 
all  men  are  more  disposed  to  believe  that  your  country  will  not 
be  broken  up  without  a  death  struggle. 

I  am  amused  with  your  stories  of  Parisian  Ministerial 
doings.  I  can  believe  almost  anything  of  some  of  the  men  who 
surround  the  throne.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  that  such  a  sys 
tem  can  last  very  long,  and  I  am  often  sorry  that  more  wisdom 
is  not  manifested,  so  that  more  solidity  might  be  given  to  the 
existing  dynasty. 

The  Mexican  affair  is  a  singular  exhibition  of  folly.  I  sus 
pect  it  must  lead  to  mischief  before  very  long.  It  is  a  tremen 
dous  thing  to  carry  on  a  war  4,000  miles  away  from  home,  and 
Mexico  may  prove  as  powerful  as  France  when  Mexico  is  the 
field  on  which  the  struggle  is  to  take  place. 

Your  Senate  intimates  that  it  wants  no  more  advice  from 
France— in  this  I  think  it  acts  wisely.  Your  "  revolution "  is 
your  own  business,  and  you  can  make  it  yield  its  natural  result 
—if  let  alone.  It  is  freedom  or  slavery  for  a  whole  continent, 
and  within  that  continent  are  the  powers  to  whom  the  question 
must  be  put,  and  by  whom  it  must  be  solved. 

I  have  been  here  for  a  week  to  get  rid  of  my  cough  and  cold. 
I  am  much  better,  and  expect  to  be  in  London  about  the  end  of 
the  week.  There  is  no  political  news  here.  I  do  not  think  our 
government  will  do  anything  on  the  Polish  question,  and  I  am 
against  any  intervention  or  interference  with  anybody. 

Don't  resolve  never  to  write  to  me  again  because  I  have  so 
much  neglected  your  last  letter. 

Very  sincerely  yours 


WILLIAM  S.  THAYEE  TO  BIGELOW 

CAIKO,  18  March,  1863. 
My  dear  Mr.  Bigelow: 

I  wish  you  would  give  me  your  advice  as  soon  as  you  con 
veniently  can,  as  to  accepting  a  membership  titulaire  of  the 
Institut  d'Afrique  of  Paris.  Its  objects  are  the  abolition  of 


614        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

*  '&  •  :,  .-•'•  "V 

slavery  and  the  slave  trade,  and  the  civilization  of  Africa.  The 
only  American  whose  name  I  see  on  the  list  is  Daniel  Webster, 
but  I  see  many  distinguished  Frenchmen  and  Englishmen  on 
the  roll.  The  Secretary  is  Hip.  de  Saint  Anthoine.  Do  you 
know  anything  about  the  Society?  It  was  founded  in  1839.  It 
is  necessary  for  me  to  write  if  I  accept  the  membership.  And 
as  I  would  like  to  answer  soon  I  hope  you  will  advise  me.  .  .  . 
Have  you  seen  M.  Chas.  de  Lesseps  yet?  I  trust  that  you 
will  find  him  all  that  is  agreeable.  I  liked  him  much. 

By  the  way  I  hope  you  will  manage  to  read  "  The  Invasion  of 
the  Crimea. "  It  is  a  wonderful  book,  both  as  a  description  of 
the  campaigns  of  the  war,  and  of  its  cause.  The  cool  way  in 
which  it  murders  your  Emperor  and  his  conspirators  of  the 
2nd  of  December  has  never  been  surpassed.  The  Emperor  has 
forbidden  the  book  from  coming  into  France  but  Kinglake  sent 
quite  a  number  of  copies  to  his  friends  there  before  the  pub 
lication  was  announced.  Do  get  it  if  you  can.  Both  the 
French  and  English  governments  will  regret  its  appearance. 
Two  more  volumes  are  yet  to  come.  Halleck's  work  on  Inter 
national  Law  I  find  a  very  convenient  book  for  me— the  best 
book  of  its  size  on  the  subject  I  have  seen.  I  am  still  working 
along  in  Bayle,  not  writing  but  reading,  so  that  I  shall  prob 
ably  be  a  "full  man"  before  I  become  a  "ready  man,"  as 
Bacon  defines  it.  By  the  time  I  see  you  I  hope  to  report 
progress.  The  subject  is  not  tiresome;  but  I  am  so  imper 
fectly  qualified  for  it.  I  feel  like  Newton's  baby  with  the 
great  ocean  of  truth  before  him. 

Nothing  very  important  here.  The  Viceroy  has  promised 
to  encourage  the  Suez  Canal.  It  was  feared  he  would  not, 
and,  for  the  first  time,  the  French  government  gave  its  Con- 
sul-General  instructions  to  look  after  the  enterprise,  after  the 
new  Viceroy's  accession.  The  position  taken  is  that  it  is  an 
Egyptian  government  project  (not  French)  and  that  M.  De 
Lesseps  was  but  the  agent  of  the  Viceroy  in  inducing  the 
investment  of  millions  of  French  capital.  Therefore  the 
Emperor  feels  it  his  duty,  not  to  insist  on  the  canal's  con 
tinuing,  but  that  French  capitalists  shall  not  be  subjected  to 
loss  by  interruption  of  the  work.  Of  course  the  Viceroy  sees 
no  better  way  than  to  go  ahead  and  pay  the  3,500,000  pounds 
pledged  by  his  predecessor. 


A  STORY  OF  THACKERAY  615 

His  Highness  has  just  exiled  four  adherents  of  his  loving 
uncle  and  legal  successor,  Mustafa  Pacha,  on  charge  of  plot 
ting  his  assassination.  He  now  eats  and  drinks  nothing  but 
from  the  hands  of  his  wife.  He  is  mortally  frightened,  and  it 
is  predicted  by  people  on  the  street  that  Mustafa  Pacha  will 
not  allow  himself  to  fail.  I  should  not  like  to  be  the  nephew 
of  Mr.  Pacha. 

Mrs.  Boss  tells  me  a  story  of  Thackeray.  He  was  at  a 
dinner  party  of  the  widow  of  Sir  Wm.  Molesworth,  a  daughter 
of  Braham,  the  singer,  and  rather  snuffed  at  by  the  society 
whom  she  courted  and  who  ate  her  dinners.  The  waiter  of 
fered  Thackeray  some  patties  which  were  about  half  the  size 
of  those  offered  to  grander  people  at  the  other  end  of  the 
table.  "Take  'em  away,"  says  he;  "these  are  two  penny 
patties.  I  want  some  of  those  four  penny  ones."  Mrs.  Sir 
W.  Molesworth  is  said  to  have  been  displeased. 

Everything  is  reckoned  by  decades.  It  is  a  decade  almost 
to  a  day  since  I  entered  the  Evening  Post  office  on  regular 
service.  It  is  a  decade  and  six  weeks  more  or  less  since  I  first 
entered  your  little  office  near  Pine  St.,  and  saw  Mrs.  Ellett 
tearing  about  like  a  she-tiger,  pushing  Mrs.  Bigelow  one  side, 
and  demanding  the  manuscript  of  "The  Lost  Child."  Alas! 
The  manuscript  was  "lost"  too. 

Speaking  of  "lost"  did  I  write  you  what  I  heard  the  blind 
Arab  crying  under  my  window  not  long  ago  I  ' '  Lost !  Oh  all 
ye  good  natured  people,  lost  a  black  donkey.  Whoever  shall 
return  the  same  shall  receive  2,000  paras.  It  is  a  great  deal 
better  to  receive  2,000  paras  than  to  keep  a  donkey  which 
don't  belong  to  you!" 

2,000  paras  is  equal  to  one  dollar  and  twenty-five  cents.  As 
the  piaster  (worth  40  paras)  is  the  unit  of  currency,  any 
other  man  would  have  offered  50  piasters,  but  the  2,000  sounds 
more  inviting.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  public  criers  here 
are  all  sightless  old  men.  No  sooner  does  an  Arab  lose  any 
thing  than  he  sends  a  blind  man  to  find  it. 

With  best  regards  to  Mrs.  Bigelow,  I  am, 

As  ever  yours 

P.S.  I  should  like  to  send  you  something  from  Egypt  as  a 
present.  Is  there  any  sort  of  thing  here  you  would  specially 
like?  Say  what  and  you  shall  have  it,  I  think. 


616        EETEOSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

Mr.  Thomas  Bailey  Potter,  who  brought  me  the  following 
note  from  Mr.  Cobden,  was  at  the  time  a  member  of  a  large 
commercial  house  in  Manchester,  the  head  of  which  was  his 
brother,  then  a  member  of  Parliament.  Mr.  Potter  took  a 
lively  interest  in  our  struggle  for  the  preservation  of  the 
Union;  was  a  great  admirer  of  Mr.  Cobden,  at  whose  death 
he  was  chosen  to  fill  his  seat  in  Parliament;  and  he  founded 
the  Cobden  Club,  of  which  he  was  the  first  and  only  president 
until  his  death.  When  he  visited  this  country  some  years  ago, 
he  was  given  a  public  dinner,  at  which  William  M.  Evarts 
presided,  in  recognition  of  the  friendly  influence  which  he  had 
exerted  in  our  behalf  among  his  fellow-countrymen  during 
the  Civil  War. 


COBDEN  TO  THOMAS  POTTER 

MIDHURST,  28  March,  1863. 
My  dear  Potter: 

When  at  Paris  you  will  of  course  call  on  Mr.  Dayton  and  Mr.  Bige- 
low.  You  will  require  no  introduction,  or  at  least  nothing  beyond  the 
knowledge  of  the  course  you  have  been  taking  on  American  affairs.  If 
you  should  be  too  modest  to  communicate  this  information,  let  me  do 
so  for  you  in  a  line  or  two  which  may  be  handed  to  those  gentlemen 
when  you  call,  informing  them  that  you  as  President  of  the  Union 
and  Emancipation  Society  of  Manchester  have  done  more  than  any 
other  man  in  the  North  of  England  to  produce  that  reaction  in  public 
opinion  in  favor  of  the  North  which  has  had  so  salutary  an  effect  on 
the  tone  of  our  parliamentary  politicians. 

I  shall  be  glad  to  hear  from  you  from  Paris. 

Believe  me,  xr 

Yours  very  truly 


SEWAED  TO  BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  March  31,  1863. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

I  have  your  note  of  the  13th.    M.  Keclus'  paper  has  not  yet 
come  to  hand.    I  have  had  leisure  to  look  into  Dr.  Le  Febvre's 


"NOT  LESS  HATED,  BUT  MORE  FEARED"     617 

dream *  and  am  infinitely  pleased  with  its  humor  as  well  as  its 
spirit.    I  shall  be  glad  to  get  your  book. 

We  are  wearing  through  our  contest  here  very  well— ac 
cording  to  present  appearances.  It  is  quite  amusing  to  see 
ourselves  laid  aside  and  buried  by  our  mourning  friends  in 
Europe,  and  enjoy  most,  the  charitable  obituaries  that  are 
pronounced  over  our  remains.  All  the  more  so  because  we 
think  we  shall  excite  an  agreeable  surprise  when  we  pro 
nounce  in  the  ears  of  the  mourners  the  soothing  assurance 
that  we  still  live. 

Faithfully  yours 


JOHN  BRIGHT  TO  BIGELOW 

EOCHDALE,  April  8,  '63. 
My  dear  Mr.  Bigelow, 

Owing  to  my  absence  from  London  I  have  not  yet  seen  your 
book  on  America.  Many  thanks  to  you  for  it,  I  shall  read  it 
with  much  interest— &  I  hope  it  may  give  some  information 
to  the  French  about  your  Country,  as  to  which  I  can  imagine 
them  to  be  even  more  ignorant  than  Englishmen  are. 

The  Trades'  Unionist  Meeting  was  a  remarkable  affair— I 
have  seen  no  meeting  on  the  American  question  more  remark 
able.  I  endeavored  to  point  out  the  principle  involved  in  your 
struggle,  &  the  interest  which  workmen  and  artisans  have  in 
it.  The  speeches  of  the  workmen  were  very  good  &  logical, 
and  I  think  the  effect  of  the  meeting  on  the  most  numerous 
class  in  this  country  must  be  considerable. 

I  am  interested  by  your  remarks  on  Kinglake's  book.  I 
think  he  treats  Cobden  &  me  very  respectfully  &  with  some 
compliments,  whilst  he  judges  very  accurately  of  the  position 
we  occupied  at  the  beginning  of  the  Eussian  war. 

You  will  have  heard  that  our  Govt.  have  seized  a  ship 

building  in  Liverpool  for  the  Southern  Conspirators— &  that 

they  are  manifesting  some  activity  in  regard  to  other  vessels 

building  for  the  same  respectable  concern.    I  hope  they  are  in 

1  Laboulaye's  "Paris  en  Amerique,"  of  which  I  had  sent  him  a  copy. 


618        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

earnest— but  I  never  trust  them  in  anything— there  is  much 
more  of  baseness  than  of  magnanimity  in  the  policy  of  our 
ruling  class.  But  I  hear  that  Mr.  Adams  observes  a  sensible 
change  in  the  tone  and  conduct  of  our  foreign  office  towards 
his  Govt.  &  I  hope  this  is  true  &  that  the  change  is  sincere.  I 
am  sure  that  if  the  news  from  the  States  become  more  and 
more  favorable  to  your  Govt.— then  our  Govt.  will  become 
more  and  more  civil  to  yours.  There  will  be  plenty  of  dirt 
for  our  people  (our  Govt.)  to  eat  if  you  should  succeed  in 
restoring  the  Union,  and  I  shall  not  make  a  wry  face  if  they 
have  to  eat  it. 

Seeing  what  you  can  do  in  ships  and  men  and  funds,  you 
will  be  much  more  thought  of  in  this  country  hereafter— not 
more  loved  or  less  hated,  but  perhaps  more  feared. 

I  am  looking  with  great  anxiety  for  further  news.  If  the 
great  river  were  cleared— then  you  could  turn  your  attention 
more  to  Tennessee,  &  to  Charleston,  Savannah,  &  Mobile— & 
we  might  see  some  daylight  in  the  future. 

I  am  at  home  for  the  Easter  recess.  Parlt.  meets  again 
next  Monday— but  I  doubt  if  I  shall  be  there  for  another  week 
or  more. 

Believe  me  always 

Very  sincerely  yours 


The  book  referred  to  by  Mr.  Bright  in  the  following  note 
had  been  prepared  for  the  special  purpose  of  placing  before 
the  governing  classes  in  Europe  a  compendious  statement  of 
the  wealth,  productive  power,  and  other  resources,  developed 
and  undeveloped,  of  the  United  States  in  such  aspects  as  to 
make  conspicuous  the  contrast  in  all  these  particulars  between 
the  free  and  the  slaveholding  States.  No  one  could  read  this 
statement  and  doubt  for  an  instant  the  friendship  of  which 
section  of  the  country  was  of  most  importance  to  Europe. 
Copies  of  this  book  were  sent  to  all  the  diplomatic  corps  and 
to  most  if  not  all  the  members  of  the  Corps  Legislatif  and  the 
important  members  of  the  French  Administration. 

The  book  was  favorably  received,  and  within  eight  months 


"LES  ETATS-UNIS  D'AMERIQUE  EN  1863"         619 

the  entire  edition  was  sold.1  I  regret  that  my  time  was  too 
much  absorbed  by  my  duties  in  France  to  act  upon  Mr. 
Bright 's  suggestion  for  an  English  edition  of  it. 


JOHN  BEIGHT  TO  BIGELOW 

BOCHDALE,  April  11,  1863. 
My  dear  Mr.  Bigelow: 

I  have  received  your  book  and  have  read  the  introduction, 
and  have  looked  through  the  rest  of  the  volume.  I  think  the 
introduction  admirable,  and  the  whole  book  full  of  informa 
tion  of  a  valuable  kind.  But  I  do  not  see  why  it  should  be  con 
fined  to  the  French— why  should  not  Englishmen  have  a 
chance  of  learning  something  from  your  labors?  I  am  sure 
such  a  work  is  wanted  here  very  much,  for  I  always  find  those 
who  are  full  of  prejudices  against  the  states  are  precisely 
those  who  are  most  ignorant  of  them.  There  is  a  great  dis 
position  to  read  on  America  just  now.  EusselPs  book  must 
have  sold  extensively,  and  Mr.  Dicey,  I  see,  is  bringing  out 
two  volumes,  which  will  be  valuable,  and  very  just  to  the 
North.  But  your  work  is  different,  and  to  certain  people,  and 
for  certain  ends,  more  useful  than  any  other  I  have  seen.  Our 
writers  give  impressions,  and  describe  what  they  have  seen 
and  heard  on  the  surface,— you  give  the  facts,  the  astounding 
facts  of  your  four  score  years  of  national  life— and  these 
facts  are  of  such  a  nature  as  to  be  irresistible  even  to  the 
most  obtuse  and  prejudiced  mind. 

I  hope  you  have  taken  steps  to  have  your  work  brought  out 
in  this  country.  It  will  require,  here  and  there,  a  slight 
alteration  which  you  will  doubtless  attend  to. 

The  news  from  the  states  is  confused,  and  not  wholly  satis 
factory.  The  time  is  very  critical.  The  Southern  papers  say 
their  cause  must  be  gained  or  lost  within  the  next  three 
months.  I  am  not  so  sure  of  this.  Perhaps  it  is  not  intended 

1  "Les  Etats-Unis  d'Amerique  en  1863,  leur  histoire  politique,  leur  resources 
mineralogiques,  agrieoles,  industrielles  et  commerciales,  et  la  part  pour  laquelle 
ils  ont  contribue  a  la  richesse  et  a  la  civilisation  du  monde  entier,"  par  John 
Bigelow  (Paris:  Hachette  et  Cie.). 


620       EETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

that  the  war  should  end,  until  the  negro  is  more  firmly  se 
cured  in  his  freedom.  I  look  however  with  much  anxiety  for 
further  news. 

Believe  me  always,  •«.  .          -, 

J  Yours  sincerely 


In  the  winter  of  1862-63  the  banking  house  of  Erlanger  & 
Co.,  Paris,  in  concert  with  a  couple  of  prominent  banking 
houses  in  London,  brought  out  what  was  known  as  the  cotton 
loan  of  $15,000,000  for  the  Confederate  States.  It  was  a  loan 
subscribed  for  pretty  exclusively  in  England.  Two  years 
later  it  transpired  that  the  name  of  William  Ewart  Gladstone, 
though  a  member  of  the  Queen's  Cabinet,  was  enrolled  among 
the  subscribers  to  this  loan  for  $10,000.  The  loan  failed  to 
receive  the  popular  support  in  England  which  its  bankers 
anticipated.  The  means  employed  by  them,  with  the  con 
nivance  of  the  Confederate  commissioner  Mason,  to  sustain 
its  market  price  are  disclosed  in  the  following  contract  and  in 
letters  of  the  commissioner.  The  reader  may  expect  to  hear 
again  of  this  loan  when,  after  the  close  of  our  Civil  War,  it 
shall  begin  to  give  up  its  secrets. 


AGREEMENT  OF  MASON  AND  ERLANGER  TO  BULL  THE  MAEKET 
FOR  THE  CONFEDERATE  LOAN 

Articles  of  Agreement  entered  into  this  seventh  day  of  April  in  the 
year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three  between 
the  Hon.  J.  M.  Mason,  special  Commissioner  of  the  Government  of 
the  Confederate  States  of  America  to  England  acting  with  the  advice 
of  the  financial  agent  of  the  Confederate  Government  in  England,  of 
the  first  part,  Messrs.  Emile  Erlanger  &  Co.,  bankers,  Paris,  of  the 
second  part. 

Whereas,  Messrs.  Emile  Erlanger  &  Co.  have  contracted  with  the  said 
Government  to  issue  in  Europe  a  loan  of  three  million  pounds  ster 
ling,  nominal  amount,  and  whereas  the  said  loan  was  fully  subscribed 
for  and  issued  to  the  public,  and  a  deposit  of  fifteen  per  cent  has  been 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  LOAN     621 

paid  upon  it  by  the  allotters,  and  whereas,  it  is  believed  that  various 
parties  have  set  themselves  to  depress  the  loan  in  the  market  by  cir 
culating  rumors,  by  selling  large  amounts  for  future  delivery  and  by 
other  machinations  in  order  to  alarm  the  holders  and  if  possible  to 
drive  them  to  abandon  the  loan  and  whereas  these  measures  have  been 
successful  in  depreciating  the  price  to  a  discount  and  thus  tending  to 
injure  the  estimation  of  the  loan  in  public  opinion  and  if  unresisted 
may  have  a  disastrous  effect  on  the  interest  of  the  Government  and  the 
bond-holders, 

Therefore  in  order  to  meet  these  attempts  and  for  the  protection  of 
the  stock-holders  and  in  the  interest  of  the  said  government,  it  is 
hereby  agreed— 

That  Messrs.  Emile  Erlanger  &  Co.  shall  and  are  hereby  authorized 
to  buy  for  account  of  the  Confederate  Government  in  the  market  up 
to  the  amount  of  1,000,000  pounds  sterling,  nominal  capital,  or  any 
smaller  amount  as  may  appear  sufficient  to  restore  the  value  of  the 
said  bonds  to  the  position  they  ought  to  hold  as  well  in  reference  to 
the  credit  of  the  government  as  in  view  of  the  interest  of  the  bond 
holders. 

Due  notice  of  the  amount  so  acquired  shall  be  from  time  to  time 
notified  to  the  Hon.  J.  M.  Mason  and  to  the  financial  agent  of  the  Con 
federate  Government,  but  it  shall  be  in  the  power  of  Messrs.  Emile 
Erlanger  &  Co.  to  resell  to  the  public  the  amount  of  stock  or  any  part 
of  the  amount  so  acquired,  at  a  price  not  lower  than  the  price  of  issue, 
say  90  per  cent,  subject  however  to  the  control  of  the  said  Hon.  J.  M. 
Mason,  and  any  profits  on  these  transactions  shall  inure  to  the  benefit 
of  the  Confederate  Government.  Should  circumstances  however  re 
quire  that  the  bonds  be  resold  at  a  price  below  price  of  issue,  such 
resale  shall  be  effected  only  under  the  sanction  of  the  Hon.  J.  M. 
Mason. 

The  operations  herein  referred  to  will  be  conducted  by  Messrs. 
Emile  Erlanger  &  Co.  free  of  all  commissions  and  charges  (except  the 
actual  brokerage  paid)  to  the  Government. 

LONDON,  7  April,  1863. 

(Signed)         J.  M.  MASON, 

Special  Com.  etc.  etc.  etc. 
(Signed)         EMILE  ERLANGER  &  Co., 
H.  HAMBERER. 
Witness  to  the  signatures, 
(Signed)     J.  W.  SCHROEDER. 


622        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 


MASON  TO  BENJAMIN 

PORTMAN  SQUARE,  LONDON, 

APRIL  9th,  1863. 
Sir: 

In  my  No.  32  of  30th  March  ultimo,  I  gave  the  history  of  the  Con 
federate  loan  up  to  that  date,  when  it  stood  with  apparent  firmness  at 
from  1%  to  2  per  cent  premium,  and  with  every  prospect,  as  I  was 
assured  by  the  bankers,  that  it  was  then  sufficiently  strong  in  the  mar 
ket  not  to  fall  below  par. 

Subsequently  however  and  within  a  few  days  afterwards,  it  fluctu 
ated  from  day  to  day  with  a  depressing  tendency  until  in  a  single  day 
it  fell  from  2  to  2%  per  cent,  closing  on  that  day  at  4  to  4%  discount. 
The  Easter  holidays  then  intervened,  when  the  exchange  was  closed 
for  one  or  two  days.  At  this  time  the  Erlangers  with  their  advisers  in 
London  came  to  me  and  represented  that  it  was  very  manifest  that 
agents  of  the  Federal  Government  here  and  those  connected  with 
them  by  sympathy  and  interest,  were  making  concerted  movements 
covertly  to  discredit  the  loan,  by  large  purchases  at  low  rates,  and 
succeeding  to  some  extent  had  thus  invited  the  formation  of  a  "bear" 
party,  whose  operations,  if  unchecked  by  an  exhibition  of  confidence 
strongly  displayed,  might  and  probably  would  bring  down  the  stock 
before  settlement  day  (24th  April)  to  such  low  rates,  as  would  alarm 
holders,  and  might  in  the  end  lead  a  large  portion  of  them  to  abandon 
their  subscriptions  by  a  forfeiture  of  the  instalments  (15  per  cent)  so' 
far  paid.  They  said  that  they  with  their  friends,  with  a  view  to  sus 
tain  the  market,  had  purchased  as  far  as  they  could  go ;  but  unless  a 
strong  and  determined  power  was  interposed  they  could  not  be  re 
sponsible  for  the  panic  that  might  arise,  and  they  advised  that  I  should 
give  them  authority  to  purchase  on  Government  account,  if  necessary, 
to  the  extent  of  one  million  (sterling)  at  such  times  as  might  appear 
judicious,  and  until  par  was  obtained.  I  represented  the  condition  of 
things  to  Mr.  Slidell  and  asked  his  counsel  in  the  matter.  He  agreed 
Avith  me  that  if  necessary  to  prevent  such  serious  consequences  as 
might  ensue  to  the  Government  credit,  the  proposed  interposition 
should  be  made.  I  further  requested  Mr.  Spence  (who  was  kept  fully 
cognizant  of  the  condition  of  things)  to  confer  with  the  depositaries 
(Trenholm  &  Co.)  at  Liverpool  as  to  the  projected  measure,  and  to 
come  up  to  London.  He  did  so ;  and  under  these  joint  counsels  includ 
ing  Erlanger  &  Co.,  it  was  determined  if  the  market  opened  after 
the  Easter  recess  under  the  same  depression,  that  the  Government 
should  buy  through  Erlanger  &  Co.,  but  of  course  without  disclosing 
the  real  party  in  the  market,  in  the  manner  indicated.  I  enclose  here- 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  LOAN     623 

with  a  copy  of  the  Articles  of  Agreement  entered  into  with  Erlanger 
&  Co.  to  effect  this  end,  dated  on  the  7th  instant.  The  next  day  (the 
8th)  was  the  first  business  day  after  the  holidays.  The  loan  opened 
under  great  depression,  and  with  declining  tendencies.  In  the  course 
of  the  day  purchases  were  made  for  our  account,  at  from  4  to  3  and 
2~y2  discount  to  the  amount  of  100,000  pounds.  This  had  the  effect  of 
bringing  the  rates  at  the  close  of  the  day  to  the  point  last  named  (2% 
discount).  The  following  day  (yesterday)  (to  use  the  language  of 
the  stock  exchange)  the  "bears"  again  made  a  rush,  but  were  met  by 
so  decided  a  front,  that  at  the  close  of  the  day  the  stock  stood  at  %  per 
cent  premium,  and  it  was  said  by  our  bankers  (who  report  to  me  every 
morning)  that  there  were  strange  manifestations  of  the  bears  creeping 
in  at  the  close  of  the  day,  to  cover  themselves  as  well  as  they  could, 
at  rates  ranging  from  y$  to  %  premium.  Yesterday  the  amount  pur 
chased  under  the  arrangement  is  reputed  at  about  300,000  pounds  and 
our  bankers  believe  that  our  work  is  substantially  done,  and  that  the 
stock  will  now  gradually  rise  to  a  healthy  condition,  and  a  premium. 
Of  course  no  purchase  will  be  made  above  par.  The  operations  of 
yesterday  were  chiefly  at  par.  All  this  thing  is  of  course  done  in 
confidence  and  silence.  Should  the  market  admit,  or  when  it  admits, 
sales  will  be  made  (never  under  par)  until  what  the  government  may 
have  bought  shall  be  again  placed.  At  worst,  should  it  be  found  neces 
sary  to  purchase  to  the  extent  proposed  (of  1,000,000)  the  effect  will 
only  be,  to  reduce  the  loan  by  that  amount. 

It  is  believed  that  after  the  adjustments  ensuing  at  settlement  day, 
and  the  payment  of  the  next  instalment  of  10  per  cent  on  the  1st  of 
May,  matters  will  become  sufficiently  permanent  not  only  to  dispense 
with  further  purchases,  but  to  enable  us  gradually  to  sell  out. 

I  hope  you  will  see  the  necessity  which  called  on  me  to  exercise  this 
responsibility,  and  that  what  I  have  done  will  have  the  approval  of 
the  Government.  I  confess  I  was  at  first  impression  exceedingly 
averse  to  it,  and  so  expressed  myself  to  Mr.  Slidell,  but  each  day  since 
I  am  better  satisfied  with  what  has  been  done. 

April  lOfli. 

The  market  closed  yesterday  firm  at  from  3  to  1  per  cent  pre 
mium,  an  improvement  on  the  day  before.  I  understand  there  were 
large  dealings  but  only  30,000  pounds  purchased  for  Government  ac 
count,  and  for  the  most  part  at  par. 

April  llth  (Saturday). 

The  market  closed  today  still  upward,  the  rates  at  close  1%  to  2% 
premium. 
I  have  the  honor  to  be 


624        KETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

MASON  TO  EMILE  EELANGEE  &  CO. 

LONDON,  24  April,  1863. 
Gentlemen: 

In  pursuance  of  the  conversation  we  have  had  together  I  hereby 
authorize  you  to  buy,  in  the  market,  a  further  amount  of  the  scrip 
of  the  7  per  cent  cotton  loan,  not  exceeding  500,000  pounds  stock 
(£500,000)  for  account  of  the  Government  of  the  Confederate  States 
of  America,  on  precisely  the  same  terms  and  conditions  as  stipulated 
in  the  former  agreement  executed  between  us,  and  bearing  date  of  the 
7th  instant,  for  the  purchase  of  £1,000,000  stock,  of  which  this  is,  in 
fact,  an  extension. 

I  am,  gentlemen, 

Your  obedient  servant 


MASON  TO  BENJAMIN 

Unofficial 

LONDON,  Apr.  27,  1863. 
Sir: 

On  the  7th  of  April  instant,  I  wrote  you,  at  some  length,  on  the 
condition  and  prospects  of  the  Loan,  on  which  I  am  now  to  make  a 
further  report. 

The  record  here  would  show,  that  this  letter  was  numbered  34  as  a 
despatch.  Should  this  be  so,  I  suggest  that  it  be  treated  as  unofficial, 
and  marked  accordingly — it,  perhaps,  should  not  go  on  the  official  files 
to  give  it  publicity. 

I  have  now  to  report  that  by  means  of  the  purchase  upon  Govern 
ment  account,  therein  referred  to,  the  stock  continued  to  stand,  from 
day  to  day,  at  about  therein  noted,  on  the  llth  of  April — say  from 
one  and  a  half  to  two  per  cent  premium.  To  maintain  this  strength, 
however,  so  large  purchases  were  made,  that  on  the  24th  instant  they 
were  found  to  exceed  one  million  sterling ;  when  again  under  the  advice 
of  Mr.  Spence,  I  enlarged  the  power  of  the  brokers  to  purchase,  to  the 
additional  extent  of  five  hundred  thousand  of  pounds  if  necessary. 
Settlement-day  was  the  25th,  and  this  new  authority  was  deemed  indis- 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  LOAN     625 

pensable  to  prevent  the  stock  again  lapsing  to  a  discount.  Mr.  Spence 
again  reports  that  on  the  25th  the  account  between  buyers  and  sellers 
was  fully  adjusted,  and  under  circumstances  leading  to  the  belief  that 
the  bears  were  sufficiently  punished  to  make  them  cautious  of  future 
like  attacks. 

Mr.  Spence,  under  whose  advice  and  guidance  I  acted  in  this  matter, 
remained  in  London  during  the  operation,  and  was  each  day  in  the 
city,  during  business  hours,  attending  to  it  in  person.  Both  he  and 
the  bankers  entertain  strong  hope,  as  the  great  mass  of  the  stock  is 
now  in  certain  hands,  that  it  will  sustain  itself  on  a  level  at  least  at 
Par,  or  free  from  fluctuations  caused  by  its  adversaries,  and  that  it 
will  have  the  benefit  of  an  upward  tendency  by  accounts  favorable  to 
the  success  of  the  Confederate  arms,  as  they  successively  reach  here. 

I  shall  not  close  this  despatch  for  some  days,  and  will  have  it  in  my 
power  to  note  what  effect  may  have  been  produced  by  the  great  and 
gratifying  intelligence  received  yesterday  of  the  signal  repulse  of  the 
ironclads  at  Charleston,  the  abandonment  of  the  attack  on  Vicksburg, 
and  the  dangerous  position  of  the  enemy's  forces  at  Washington,  N.  C. 

The  very  large  purchases  that  were  required  to  sustain  the  stock 
afford  the  best  evidence  that  without  them  it  would  have  fallen  so 
far  below  par,  as  to  have  brought  it  into  great  discredit,  very  possibly 
producing  a  panic  so  great,  as  to  induce  holders  even  to  abandon  the 
instalment  paid,  of  fifteen  per  cent,  rather  than  incur  risk  of  greater 
loss :  and  the  more  I  have  thought  on  the  subject  the  better  I  am  satis 
fied  of  the  correctness  of  our  judgment  in  going  to  the  market  to  sus 
tain  it.  The  next  instalment  is  due  on  the  1st  of  May,  which  when 
paid,  will  amount  to  twenty-five  per  cent.  After  that,  both  the  bankers 
and  Mr.  Spence  are  sanguine,  that  under  favorable  accounts  from  the 
South,  the  stock  will  so  rapidly  improve  as  to  enable  them,  gradually, 
to  replace  what  was  bought  in,  by  sales,  from  time  to  time,  as  the 
market  would  bear. 

It  is  difficult  satisfactorily  to  determine  why  the  stock  fell  so  rap 
idly  to  four  or  five  per  cent  discount,  after  having  for  the  first  few 
days  stood  at  a  premium  equal  to  the  same  amount,  and  under  the 
apparent  avidity  to  obtain  it,  which  prompted  the  overflowing  Sub 
scription  of  nearly  sixteen  millions. 

I  am  not  sufficiently  conversant  with  the  stock-market  or  its  ten 
dencies  to  solve  the  question.  My  advisers  ascribe  it  to  the  determined 
effort  of  Federal  agencies  here  to  throw  the  Loan  into  discredit ;  and 
Mr.  Spence  thinks  amongst  other  causes,  that  it  was  placed  too  high 
(at  90)  upon  the  market.  Be  this  as  it  may,  I  was  satisfied  that  any 
risk  should  be  taken,  to  prevent  the  Loan  from  falling  through,  and 
acted  accordingly.  Should  we  be  unable  to  resell,  it  will,  of  course, 
much  disturb  all  arrangements  that  have  been  made,  based  upon  the 


626        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

estimated  receipts  from  the  Loan.  I  believe,  however,  that  no  loss  will 
be  sustained  because  of  our  purchases ;  and  have  even  a  confident  hope 
that  it  will  turn  out  a  money-making  operation.  At  worst,  should  we 
be  obliged  to  hold  the  stock,  there  is  little  doubt  it  can  be  used  to  meet 
existing  engagements  of  the  Government  here. 

May  2nd. 

I  enclose  an  account  that  may  interest  you,  showing  the  purchases 
made  from  day  to  day  on  Government  account,  with  the  prices  affixed.3 
The  sales  at  the  close  of  the  account  show  only  twenty-six  thousand 
pounds  (£26,000).  It  is  thought  now,  however,  that  the  market  will 
daily  grow  stronger,  and  admit  of  sales  more  freely.  On  the  day 
before  yesterday  (the  30th  of  April)  twenty  thousand  pounds  addi- 


April  8. 


Dis. 
" 


1  "Bought  by  order  and  for  account 
States  of  America: 

April  7.— £75,000  at  3 

15,000  "  m 

15,000  "  2^ 

10,000  "  2^ 

10,000  "  1% 

5,000  "  1 

4,000  "  1^ 

8,000  "  1^4 

3,000  "  1% 

37,000  "  1 

32,000  "  % 

3,000  "  % 

3,000  "  % 

23,000  "  % 

47,000  "  % 

1,000  "    y8 

110,000  " 

April  9.-  10,000  " 

1,000  " 

25,500  " 

5,000  " 

April  10.-  51,000  " 

13,000  " 

17,000  " 

5,000  " 

3,000  " 

17,000  " 

10,000  " 

April  11.-  19,500  " 

25,000  " 

April  13.-  15,000  " 


of  the  Government  of  the  Confederate 


par. 
%  Pm. 


1% 


April 

13.-£22,000 

at 

1%  Pm 

April 

14.- 

25,000 

" 

1% 

it 

April 

15.- 

26,000 

" 

1% 

U 

April 

16.- 

45,000 

u 

1 

tl 

April 

17.- 

1,000 

" 

% 

" 

April 

18.- 

21,500 

a 

1 

tl 

April 

20.- 

67,500 

it 

1 

11 

April 

21.- 

44,000 

n 

1 

11 

April 

23.- 

5,000 

tf 

1 

11 

35,000 

" 

B4 

U 

65,000 

u 

1% 

It 

128,000 

u 

1^ 

tl 

April 

24.— 

5,000 

it 

1% 

It 

160,900 

tl 

1% 

11 

5,000 

u 

1%6 

" 

100,000 

tt 

1H 

" 

14,600  "   1 
Confed.  7%  cotton   .     .     .  £1,388,500 

Sold: 
April  8.—  £6,000  at    ^  Dis. 

5,000 "   y*  " 

April  9.-     5,000  «    par. 

5,000  "     %  Pm. 
April  10.-     5,000  "    1%    " 

26,000 
£1,362,500 

E.  &  0.  E. 
LONDON,  28  April,  1863." 


"LES  ETATS-UNIS  D'AMERIQUE  EN  1863"         627 

tional  were  sold  at  one  and  five  eighths  per  cent  premium,  yesterday 
was  dies  non  at  the  Stock  Exchange,  a  holiday. 

No  intelligence  yet  of  Mr.  McRae.1 

I  have  the  honor  to  be,  very  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant2 


MOTLEY  TO  BIGELOW 

VIENNA,  April  24,  1863. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

I  hope  you  don 't  think  me  very  negligent  in  having  delayed 
until  now  my  answer  to  your  kind  &  interesting  letter  of 
April  1,  as  well  as  my  thanks  for  your  most  valuable  present 
"Les  fitats-Unis  d'Amerique  en  1863, "  which  reached  me 
safely  a  day  or  two  later.  I  congratulate  you  very  much  on 
so  excellent  a  work,  so  thorough,  exhaustive,  &  masterly  in  its 
presentment  of  the  greatest  cause  for  which  men  have  ever 
fought.  If  men  would  not  fight  twenty  years  for  the  preser 
vation  of  such  a  country  &  such  noble  institutions,  as  we 
possess  &  as  you  have  so  well  massed  &  held  up  in  the  face  of 
Europe,  they  are  only  fit  to  be  the  humble  servants  of  Czars  & 
Kaisers  &  oligarchs. 

I  am  glad  to  find  that  you  are  still  sufficiently  interested  in 
the  public  opinion  of  Europe  in  regard  to  our  affairs  to  be 

1  Another  of  the  Confederate  commissioners  in  partibus. 

2  In  the  foregoing  letter  we  have  another  of  Mr.  Benjamin's  methods,  and  a 
pretty  costly  one,  too,  of  "enlightening  public  opinion  in  Europe."    Subtract 
ing  this  $6,000,000  wasted  in  "rigging"  the  English  market,  and  some  $5,000,- 
000  more,  wasted  upon  ships  which  were  never  delivered,  the  balance  realized 
from  the  $15,000,000  cotton  loan  by  the  Confederate  Government  does  not 
speak  very  highly  for  the  morals  or  the  financiering  of  the  Confederate  agents 
in  Europe.    Neither  does  the  fraud,  so  deliberately  planned  and  executed  by 
Mr.  Mason  and  his  colleagues,  appear  any  more  venial  because  it  was  specially 
designed  to  mislead  and  defraud  their  special  friends  and  foreign  allies,  who 
alone  were  stupid  enough  to  buy  their  securities. 

It  would  be  surprising  if  the  people  of  this  world  should  some  day  be 
just  wicked  enough  to  ask  the  first  person  they  think  likely  to  know,  whether 
all  the  gentlemen  shown  here  to  have  been  concerned  in  sustaining  the  market 
with  Confederate  funds  had  as  many  of  those  but-too-much-coddled  securities 
when  they  stopped  "sustaining"  as  they  had  when  they  began.  (See  Bige- 
low's  France  and  the  Confederate  Navy,  Harper  &  Brothers,  1888.) 


628        RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

willing  to  occupy  your  time  in  enlightening  the  dense  ig 
norance  which  prevails  on  the  subject.  I  am  glad,  I  say, 
because  the  result  is  an  invaluable  work — one  which  will  cer 
tainly  be  of  great  use  to  me,  &  which  I  shall  keep  on  my  table 
always  as  an  indispensable  book  of  reference— as  a  kind  of 
philosophical  encyclopaedia  in  compact  form— &  which  must 
at  least  command  the  attention  &  the  respect  of  all  thinkers  in 
Europe.  You  know  better  than  I  do  how  large  or  small  that 
class  may  be  in  France.  For  myself  I  have  long  since  passed 
through  the  stage  at  which  Eluropean  opinion  on  America 
had  any  value  for  me.  The  gens  d' elite,  the  men  of  thought  & 
theory  who  are  always  about  a  generation  ahead  of  the  vulgar 
governing  or  governed  classes  &  who  are  therefore  looked 
down  upon  as  dreamers,  altho'  their  dreams  are  sure  to  be 
come  the  substantial  stuff  of  men's  daily  life  in  the  next 
generation— these  men  have  thoroughly  understood  the 
causes,  incidents  &  inevitable  issues  of  the  great  revolution 
now  going  on  in  the  U.  States.  But  what  impression  have 
such  men  as  Tocqueville,  &  Gasparin,  or  Stuart  Mill  &  Cairnes 
&  John  Bright  &  the  doctrinaires  who  write  in  the  London 
Daily  News  articles  full  of  knowledge  &  of  power,  been  able  to 
produce  on  their  contemporaries,  on  the  ignorant  aristocratic 
rabble  who  control  the  destinies  of  Europe,  &  who  determine 
the  attitude  of  Europe  to  America?  Very  little,  I  fear.  But 
it  signifies  little  to  us— very  much  to  the  peoples  of  Europe. 
Alas  for  the  nations  who  prefer  to  be  fed  on  the  daily  lies 
furnished  them  by  the  aristocratic  journalists  &  stump  ora 
tors  of  England,  to  deriving  their  nourishment  from  the 
storehouses  of  truth  which  are  ever  open.  I  always  knew 
that  human  nature  was  capable  of  great  energy.  But  the 
solid,  substantial,  long  sustained  &  vigorous  lying  which  has 
been  kept  up  by  the  London  press  for  two  years  long  in  re 
gard  to  America,  surpasses  all  that  I  had  previously  imagined 
possible. 

It  is  in  its  way  sublime.  Yet  it  does  n't  seem  to  damage  us 
very  much.  And  I  am  pleased  to  see  that  in  the  many  Amer 
ican  journals  which  I  receive,  it  is  very  rarely  that  any  notice 
is  taken  of,  or  extracts  given  from,  these  wretched  vehicles  of 
calumny  &  falsehood.  Thank  God  we  have  risen  above  all 
that  since  we  had  something  really  to  do  in  the  world.  For 
myself  I  have  n't  seen  the  Times  or  Galignani's  Messenger 


THE   SLAVEHOLDERS'  PRIVILEGE   CLAUSE      629 

or  any  thing  of  that  sort  for  nearly  a  year.  I  would  as  soon 
have  rattlesnakes  in  my  house.  But  I  mark  the  trace  of  them 
through  the  German  journals,  &  I  see  that  all  the  information, 
meagre  as  it  is,  in  regard  to  us,  is  derived  from  the  same 
political  source.  I  did  not  think  it  possible  so  to  misrepresent 
current  history,  by  the  scientific  garbling,  suppression  &  in 
vention  of  facts,  as  has  been  done  so  successfully  in  our  case 
by  our  legion  of  enemies.  Tant  pis  pour  eux. 

I  think  you  have  presented  the  %  clause  very  lucidly  &  in 
geniously.  I  am  not  sure  however  that  I  am  inclined  to  attach 
all  the  weight  to  it  that  you  do.  Slavery  itself,  the  concen 
tration  of  much  power  &  property  in  few  hands,  &  the  degra 
dation  of  labour  throughout  a  great  section  of  country,  would 
have  of  itself  created  the  Privilege  which  it  is  the  business  of 
this  generation  of  Americans  to  destroy,  even  without  the 
technical  &  artificial  advantage  acquired  by  that  unlucky 
clause  of  the  constitution.  Still  the  evil  was  accelerated  & 
aggravated  thereby  no  doubt. 

In  reg'd  to  war  with  Engl'd  I  partake  of  your  fears  in  a 
lesser  degree — but  I  deprecate  such  a  war  much  more.  It 
wd.  be  very  green  in  us  to  accept  that  war  now.  No  doubt 
there  is  a  party  in  Engld.  desirous  of  getting  up  that  war- 
partly  from  political  hatred  &  partly  from  the  sordid  motives 
which  are  so  shamelessly  manifested  to  the  world.  But  there 
are  many,  perhaps  a  majority,  in  Engd.  who  are  opposed  to  the 
war — &  we  should  be  turning  our  backs  on  our  friends  &  giv 
ing  all  our  enemies— the  slaveholders,  most  of  all,— cause  to 
jump  for  joy,  if  we  shd  blunder  into  a  war  with  any  body  so 
long  as  we  can  keep  out  of  it.  I  am  perfectly  aware  that  the 
English  privateering  business  is  a  casus  belli,  as  well  as  one 
of  the  most  infamous  ^C&tera  desunt.] 

In  penning  the  foregoing  lines  about  the  three-fifths  clause 
of  the  Constitution  Mr.  Motley  seems  to  have  lost  sight  of  the 
fact  that  the  slave  interest,  which,  from  the  adoption  of  the 
Constitution,  had 'been  steadily  intrenching  itself,  was  never 
so  powerful,  so  arrogant  and  so  despotic  as  under  the  Ad 
ministration  which  preceded  the  election  of  Lincoln  to  the 
Presidency.  Contemporaneous,  however,  with  the  election  of 
Mr.  Lincoln  were  the  revelations  of  the  census  of  1860,  by 
which  the  slave-owners  learned  that  the  political  power  of 


630        RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

the  country  had  crossed  the  Potomac  and  that,  in  spite  of  the 
political  advantages  of  the  three-fifths  clause  to  the  slave 
States,  the  free  States  were  thenceforward  irreconcilably  in 
the  ascendant  and  in  control  of  the  Government.  For  more 
than  half  a  century,  with  the  aid  of  the  three-fifths  clause, 
slavery  had  been  steadily  growing  stronger  and  finally  in 
tolerant  of  any  criticism  of  it  as  either  a  social  or  political 
institution.  As  soon  as  the  political  power  of  the  country, 
however,  passed  to  the  free  States  we  were  told  that  the 
South  could  not  and  would  not  live  without  slavery.  The 
Civil  War  which  followed  was  a  perfectly  natural  effort  to 
slough  a  foreign  body  which  was  festering  in  our  system  of 
popular  sovereignty  and  to  rid  that  system  of  an  aristocratic 
element  based  on  property  in  slaves  which  was  not  shared  by 
a  majority  of  the  people  or  States  and  was  utterly  irrecon 
cilable  with  popular  sovereignty.  The  degradation  of  labor 
and  the  inhumanity  of  slavery  may  have  accelerated  and  ag 
gravated  the  conflict  which  followed,  but  the  time  chosen  by 
the  South  shows  very  clearly  that  it  was  the  impotence  of  the 
three-fifths  clause  to  insure  it  the  control  of  the  Government 
that  made  a  fratricidal  war  the  only  agency  through  which 
our  Constitution  could  be  purged  of  its  one,  if  not  its  only, 
undemocratic  provision. 


HAKGBEAVES  TO  3IGELOW 

27  April,  1863. 
Dear  Mr.  Bigelow: 

Mr.  Cobden  writes  me— "I  shall  be  in  Havre  tomorrow  and 
will  bring  the  speech  with  me.  Will  you  be  so  good  as  to 
write  and  inform  Mr.  Bigelow  that  he  may  take  the  necessary 
steps  for  reprinting  it.  I  will  soften  the  allusion  to  Mr. 
Seward— " 

Trusting  that  you  have  arrived  safe  in  Paris  to  find  your 
children  all  well,  I  remain  with  kindest  remembrances  to  Mrs. 
Bigelow, 

Always  most  truly  yours 


A  DOUBTING  THOMAS  631 

The  state  of  matters  at  Charleston  and  Vicksburg  tells  us 
that  the  end  is  not  yet.  In  truth  the  end  will  not  come  until 
justice  to  the  negro  becomes  an  absolute  necessity. 


W.  H.  KUSSELL  TO  BIGELOW 

18  SUMNER  PLACE,  S.  W., 

April  15,  1863. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

You  will  be  surprised  to  hear  that  I  have  been  asked  to  pay 
another  visit  to  the  States,  but  you  will  not  be  astonished  to 
hear  that  I  have  declined  doing  so  just  at  present.  I  am 
much  more  likely  to  see  you  in  Paris  where  I  trust  to  be  in  a 
month  or  so,  and  I  am  in  hopes  of  taking  Thack.  under  my 
wing  and  improving  his  mind  and  his  digestion  by  a  course  of 
light  wines  &  dinners.  I  don't  know  what  your  letters  say 
but  if  they  are  of  the  same  tenor  as  mine,  you  must  derive 
from  them  very  small  consolation  in  the  present  conflict.  I 
have  all  along  maintained  that  according  to  the  general  prin 
ciples  which  ensure  success  in  war  the  North  ought  to  be  able 
to  establish  its  garrisons  in  military  occupation  of  the  stra 
tegic  political  points  in.  the  Southern  States.  To  do  so 
however  the  North  must  act  with  all  the  vigor  and  "  homoge 
neity  "  of  a  military  force  and  must  produce  chiefs  able  to 
direct  armies,  soldiers  willing  to  fight  to  the  last,  and  a  popu 
lation  prepared  to  pay  in  blood  and  money  to  the  uttermost. 
That  the  South  will  ever  again  become  a  member  of  any  Union 
consisting  of  the  Middle  and  New  England  States  is  beyond  my 
belief  or  comprehension,  though  I  am  unfortunately  a  believer 
in  the  results  of  physical  force.  The  amount  of  misery  borne 
by  the  Southerners  is  a  test  of  their  resolution,  and  it  is  an 
efficient  machine  in  arousing  sympathy  in  Europe  for  a  peo 
ple  so  valiant  and  so  enduring.  I  am  told  it  is  lucky  the 
Polish  uprising  has  called  off  the  surplus  energy  of  France  or 
the  Emperor  would  have  found  it  quite  impossible  to  resist 
the  feeling  in  favor  of  intervention.  Of  course  our  govern 
ment  does  not  receive  any  thanks  for  chilling  his  Imperial 
zeal  in  that  direction.  I  never  approved  of  the  Alabama's 


632        EETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

proceedings,  but  I  am  satisfied  the  government  was  not  to 
blame  as  has  been  stated  so  generally  in  America.  Our  For 
eign  'Enlistment  Act  requires  revision  and  was  meant  for  slow 
coach  times.  Steam,  cupidity  and  commercial  genius  if  there 
be  such  a  thing  about  commerce  at  all,  are  too  much  for  it 
nowadays.  By  this  time  you  must  be  quite  gallicized  and  Mrs. 
Bigelow  will  have  quite  forgotten  Baltimore  and  its  lovely 
soft  crabs  &  hard  monuments.  I  hope  she  and  all  the  children 
are  as  well  as  we  wish  them.  .  .  . 

Ever  with  kind  regards 


WEED  TO  BIGELOW 

ALBANY,  April  16,  1863. 

Thanks,  dear  Bigelow,  for  your  letter  and  preface.  I  shall 
read  the  latter  this  evening,  but  while  in  the  vein  will  answer 
the  former  briefly. 

We  are  indeed  drifting  towards  the  iron  bound  coast  of 
England.  I  too  for  some  time  have  seen  that  we  shall  inevi 
tably  clash  with  that  power.  We  cannot  stand  any  more 
Alabamas. 

Mr.  Aspinwall  and  Mr.  Forbes  have  gone  (privately)  to 
England  to  purchase  private  ships.  Mr.  Evarts  goes  on 
Saturday  to  confer  with  Mr.  Adams  upon  legal  questions  and 
to  associate  with  English  lawyers. 

We  are  doing  badly  enough  here.  Neither  Vicksburg  nor 
Charleston  is  or  can  be  taken.  Indeed  our  army  at  each  of 
these  points  is  inferior  to  that  of  the  enemy ! 

In  a  month  or  six  weeks  the  term  of  service  of  200,000 
troops  expires. 

If  we  were  lost  before,  I  greatly  fear  that  the  Proclamation 
has  "done  for  us."  I  dislike  to  say  this,  even  to  you,  but  I 
cannot  help  it.  In  the  very  strongest  and  broadest  sense  of 
language,  I  assure  you  that  it  has  strengthened  tlie  South  and 
weakened  the  North. 


ANOTHER  DOUBTING  THOMAS  633 

I  believe  I  intimated,  in  my  last,  a  doubt  about  the  war 
like  zeal  of  the  free  colored  men.  This  is  no  longer  a  matter 
of  doubt.  Governor  Andrews  is  not  able  to  raise  one  regi 
ment  in  Massachusetts.  We  are  sending  such  as  will  go  from 
this  state. 

The  disloyalty  of  Democrats  and  the  sense  and  exertion  of 
Union  men,  saved  Connecticut. 

I  have  done  with  Greeley.  He  is  no  longer  troublesome. 
There  is  mutiny  in  the  "Tribune  Buildings,"  and  it  is  pos 
sible  that  his  own  hounds  will  turn  upon  him. 

Opdyke,  Wetmore,  Charley  Gould,  Field,  etc.,  with  John 
Van  Buren  and  "Jim"  Brady  are  organizing  a  new  party, 
and  so  long  as  they  make  the  war  and  the  country  the  first 
consideration,  success  to  them. 

I  shall  not  probably  get  into  editorial  harness  again,  though 
if  I  were  ten  or  fifteen  years  younger  I  could  not  keep  out. 

.  .  .  How  I  wish  you  were  here. 

Ever  yours 


[P.S.]  Gen.  Bowen  is  doing  well  at  New  Orleans. 

SLIDELL  TO  BENJAMIN 

PARIS,  March  4,  1863. 
Sir: 

On  the  22d  ultimo  I  had  a  long  interview  with  M.  Drouyn  de  Lhuys 
expecting  that  he  would  have  received  something  definite  from  M. 
Mercier  on  the  subject  of  the  proposition  for  a  conference  made  by  the 
letter  of  9th  January.  Although  a  letter  had  been  received  from  M. 
Mercier  dated  5th  February,  no  mention  whatever  was  made  of  the 
subject,  not  even  an  acknowledgment  of  the  receipt  of  the  despatch  of 
the  9th  January. 

This  was  the  more  extraordinary  as  M.  Drouyn  de  Lhuys  was  in 
formed  from  London  that  M.  Mercier  intended  to  read  that  despatch 
to  Mr.  Seward  on  the  3rd  Feb. 

I  spoke  to  M.  Drouyn  de  Lhuys  of  the  matter  mentioned  in  cypher 


634        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

in  my  No.  23 ;  *  he  said  that  it  was  one  on  which  he  was  not  necessarily 
called  to  act,  that  it  belonged  rather  to  the  Minister  of  Marine,  that  it 
was  better  that  he  should  know  nothing  of  it,  that  he  was  quite  will 
ing  to  close  his  eyes  until  some  direct  appeal  was  made  to  him. 

The  Minister  was  extremely  cordial,  said  that  he  would  always  be 
happy  to  see  me  whenever  I  desired  it,  but  that  unless  something  spe 
cial  occurred,  it  would  be  better  that  I  should  communicate  through 
the  friend  of  whom  I  had  spoken  in  previous  despatches. 

He  asked  me  to  send  him  through  that  channel  any  information  or 
suggestion  that  I  might  desire  to  make.  This  is  a  very  convenient  and 
agreeable  arrangement,  dispensing  with  the  delays  and  formalities 
attending  personal  interviews  with  the  Minister. 

On  the  following  day  I  called  by  appointment  on  M.  Rouher  with 
M.  Voruz,  deputy  from  Nantes,  of  whom  I  spoke  in  my  No.  25.  The 
express  object  of  the  appointment  was  to  receive  from  him  a  distinct 
assurance  that  if  we  were  to  build  ships  of  war  in  French  ports  we 
should  be  permitted  to  arm  and  equip  them  and  proceed  to  sea.  This 
assurance  was  given  him,  and  so  soon  as  the  success  of  Erlanger  's  loan 2 
is  established,  I  shall  write  to  Messrs.  Maury  and  Bullock,  recommend 
ing  them  to  come  here  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  whether  they 
can  make  satisfactory  contracts. 

The  partner  of  a  large  Banking  house  at  Vienna  recently  called  to 
see  me,  he  says  that  the  Austrian  Government  has  some  very  superior 
war  steamers  which  can  be  bought  thoroughly  armed  and  ready  for 
sea,  with  the  exception  of  the  crews.  I  shall  advise  M.  Maury  to  look 
at  them. 

Seward  's  letter  to  Dayton  rejecting  the  proposition  for  a  conference 
was  published  two  or  three  days  since,  its  tone  is  considered  very 
exceptionable  and  his  boasting  assertions  are  universally  received 
with  ridicule  and  contempt.  I  have  not  been  able  to  learn  what  im 
pression  it  had  produced  on  the  Emperor,  but  I  remain  unchanged  in 
my  opinion,  that  he  will  not  long  allow  our  question  to  rest  where  it  is. 

In  my  conversation  with  M.  Drouyn  de  Lhuys,  I  mentioned  the  loan 
of  Erlanger  &  Co.  and  invoked  his  good  offices  in  carrying  it  out,  say- 

1  This  is  doubtless  a  reference  to  the  conspiracy  already  incubating  for  the 
construction  of  some  vessels  of  war  in  the  shipyards  of  France  for  the  Con 
federate  States  under  the  supervision  of  Captain  Bullock,  of  which  full  details 
will  be  given  presently. 

2  The  loan  here  referred  to  was  for  $15,000,000  and  was  brought  out  in  Lon 
don  under  the  auspices  of  Erlanger  &  Co.    Of  this  loan  and  its  subscribers  in 
England  the  reader  will  be  permitted  to  learn  more  a  few  years  later.    Mean 
time  he  may  profitably  consult  a  pamphlet  privately  printed  by  the  present 
writer  in  1905,  entitled  "Lest  We  Forget:  Gladstone,  Morley,  and  the  Con 
federate  Loan  of  1863." 


THE  CONFEDERATE  NAVY  IN  FRANCE    635 

ing  that  these  gentlemen  considered  it  important  that  it  should  be 
advertised  in  the  Paris  papers,  but  that  the  advertisement  could  not 
be  made  without  the  assent  of  the  Government.  He  expressed  his 
wishes  for  the  success  of  the  loan  but  thought  that  he  could  not  consent 
to  the  advertisement :  That  the  object  could  be  equally  well  attained 
by  the  circular,  etc.,  while  advertisements  would  excite  unfriendly 
comment  and  probably  be  made  the  subject  of  a  protest  from  the 
Federal  Minister. 

The  consent  of  the  Minister  of  Finance,  M.  Fould,  had  been  ob 
tained,  subject  however  to  the  approbation  of  the  Minister  of  Foreign 
Affairs.  Erlanger  &  Co.  then  brought  the  subject  before  the  Emperor, 
who  very  promptly  directed  his  secretary  to  write  a  note  to  the  Minis 
ter  requesting  him  to  grant  an  audience  to  M.  Erlanger  on  an  urgent 
matter  in  which  he  felt  great  interest. 

The  result  of  the  audience  was  the  withdrawal  by  M.  Drouyn  de 
Lhuys  of  his  objections,  and  the  loan  will  now  be  simultaneously  ad 
vertised  here  and  in  London.  I  mention  this  fact  as  offering  renewed 
evidence  of  the  friendly  feeling  of  the  Emperor. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be  with  great  respect, 

Your  most  obedient  servant 


SLIDELL  TO  BENJAMIN 

PARIS,  20th  April,  1863. 
Sir: 

My  last  was  of  the  llth  instant.  We  are  still  without  intelligence  of 
Mr.  McRae,  and  if  he  does  not  soon  make  his  appearance,  there  will 
be  good  reason  to  believe  that  something  serious  has  happened  to  him. 
I  venture  to  suggest  the  propriety  of  making  another  appointment 
based  upon  the  hypothesis  of  a  vacancy  in  his  office,  of  some  person 
now  in  Europe  to  supply  his  place.  Of  course  should  Mr.  McRae 
reach  here,  the  appointment  could  have  no  effect.  There  are  several 
very  fit  persons  whom  I  could  name,  but  there  are  two  who  are  in  every 
way  qualified  to  discharge  the  duties  of  the  office,  Mr.  James  T.  Souter, 
a  native  of  Virginia,  for  several  years  the  president  of  the  Bank  of  the 
Republic  at  New  York,  and  who  was  obliged  with  his  family  to  leave 
the  United  States  to  escape  arrest  and  imprisonment,  and  Mr.  James 
M.  Buchanan  of  Maryland,  Ex-minister  at  Copenhagen,  who  has  four 
sons  in  our  army ;  both  are  well  known  to  many  persons  at  Richmond. 

As  I  said  in  a  previous  despatch,  the  absence  of  Mr.  McRae,  if  much 
prolonged,  may  be  productive  of  very  great  embarrassment  in  the 


636        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

financial  arrangement  of  the  Agents  of  the  War  and  Navy  Depart 
ment  in  Europe. 

On  the  14th  instant,  I  received  from  M.  Mocquard,  Chef  du  Cabinet 
of  the  Emperor,  a  note  in  which  he  said  that  he  hastened  to  send  me 
a  paper  which  he  thought  could  not  fail  to  be  of  interest  to  me.  It 
was  a  copy  of  a  telegraphic  despatch  from  Mr.  Adams  of  London  to 
Mr.  Dayton,  advising  him  that  the  Japan,  alias  Virginia,  would  prob 
ably  enter  a  French  port  near  St.  Malo.  On  the  following  day  I  saw 
M.  Mocquard,  who  told  me  he  had  been  directed  by  the  Emperor  to 
send  me  the  despatch  as  soon  as  received.  All  despatches  go  first 
through  the  Minister  of  the  Interior ;  if  they  have  any  political  inter 
est  they  are  transmitted  to  the  Tuileries  by  the  wires ;  thus  I  have  no 
doubt  that  I  was  in  possession  of  the  paper  as  soon  as  Mr.  Dayton.  I 
thanked  M.  Mocquard  for  his  note  and  said  that  I  had  called  to  ask 
his  counsel  as  to  the  course  I  should  pursue  in  relation  to  it.  He  asked 
me  what  I  desired  should  be  done  in  the  matter.  I  said  that  of  course 
I  wished  that  every  needful  facility  should  be  afforded  by  the  Govern 
ment  for  the  repair  of  the  Steamer.  He  advised  me  to  prepare  a  note 
to  that  effect  which  he  would  present  to  the  Emperor  and  to  feel 
assured  all  would  be  right.  You  cannot  fail  to  perceive  the  very  great 
significance  of  what  I  have  narrated;  the  necessity  of  putting  the 
greater  portion  of  it  in  cypher  obliges  me  to  be  laconic. 

I  send  you  copy  of  the  memorandum  I  prepared  for  submission 
to  the  Emperor.  Captain  Bullock  has  signed  provisional  contract  for 
building  four  steamers  of  the  Alabama  class  on  a  large  scale.  Con 
tract  to  take  effect  when  assurances  satisfactory  to  me  are  given  that 
the  ships  will  be  allowed  to  leave  French  Ports  armed  and  equipped. 
Contractors  are  confident  that  these  assurances  will  be  given.  I  shall 
probably  know  the  result  in  time  to  inform  you  by  the  same  convey 
ance  as  I  employ  for  this  despatch.1 

I  have  the  honor  to  be,  etc.. 


SEWAED  TO  BIGELOW 

DEPABTMENT  or  STATE, 

WASHINGTON,  May  4,  1863. 
My  dear  Sir: 

I  thank  you  sincerely  for  your  letter  of  the  17th  of  April 
written  at  London. 

I 1  did  not  become  aware  of  the  existence  of  this  contract  until  five  months 
later,  September  9.     For  its  history  and  some  of  its  results,  see  Bigelow's 
"  France  and  the  Confederate  Navy." 


WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS'S  MISSION  637 

The  activity  of  the  British  agent  in  fitting  out  expeditions 
tends  very  directly  to  a  war  with  the  United  States.  And 
yet  I  can't  bring  myself  to  believe  that  the  present  or  any 
other  ministry  could  desire,  much  less  meditate  such  a  design. 
Certainly  we  shall  practice  all  the  prudence  possible  to  avert 
such  an  embarrassment. 

At  the  moment  when  I  write  an  important  battle  is  under 
stood  to  be  going  on  behind  the  Eappahannock.  The  result 
will  probably  be  known  before  the  departure  of  the  steamer. 

General  Banks'  proceedings  in  Louisiana  are  very  favor 
able  and  all  that  we  hear  from  the  Mississippi  expedition  is 
cheering.  In  the  midst  of  the  uncertainties  of  our  movements 
it  would  be  rash  to  speculate.  But  there  is  a  trend  of  public 
confidence  in  the  success  of  the  Union  cause. 
I  am  very  truly,  your  friend 


WILLIAM  M.  EVAETS  TO  BIGELOW 

EDWARDS'  HOTEL,  LONDON, 

May  4, 1863. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

Mr.  Forbes  goes  over  to  Paris  tomorrow  and  I  send  a  line 
to  give  you  information  of  my  exact  domicile  and  to  acknow 
ledge  a  kind  message  from  you  which,  through  some  traveller, 
Mr.  Forbes  brought  me  this  morning. 

I  shall,  of  course,  come  to  Paris  and  depend  much  upon  you 
to  introduce  me  to  its  wonders  and  protect  me  from  its  perils. 
If  there  is  to  be  at  any  particular  time  any  special  show  item 
or  miracle  that  it  will  be  important  for  me  to  see  and  you  will 
drop  me  a  timely  line,  I  may  be  able  to  adapt  myself  to  the 
emergency. 

I  suppose  you  know,  or  guess,  what  I  came  here  for.  The 
prospect  of  a  continued  emission  of  armed  vessels  from  Paris 
ports  to  cut  up  our  commerce  carried  so  much  danger  to  our 
peaceful  relations  that  the  government  thought  it  might  be 
useful  to  place  a  lawyer  of  their  own  at  Mr.  Adams'  service. 
The  Minister  and  the  gentlemen  of  the  Legation  received  me 


638        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

very  cordially  and  seem  to  think  my  visit  may  be  useful.    I 
find  the  government  more  awake  to  the  dangers   of  their 
stickling  for  the  "freedom  of  British  Commerce"  than  I 
feared  they  would  be. 
With  my  respects  to  Mrs.  Bigelow, 

I  am  yours  very  truly 


JOHN  M.  FORBES  TO  BIGELOW 

LONDON,  6  May,  1863. 
My  dear  Mr.  Bigelow: 

I  hope  to  be  in  Paris  Wednesday  morning  or  night. 

Mr.  Cobden's  pamphlet  is  on  hand.  I  am  not  sure  if  he 
has  modified  what  he  said  of  Seward  but  I  think  he  has  as  it 
sounds  softer.  "Mr.  Seward  writes  so  much  that  he  is  in 
danger  of  being  on  every  side  of  a  subject."  I  really  think  it 
no  harm  to  English  circulation  to  have  Mr.  Cobden  appear 
not  in  the  light  of  a  defender  of  American  but  rather  of 
British  interests.  Wm.  M.  Evarts  is  here. 

Very  truly  yours 


THAYEE  TO  BIGELOW 

ALEXANDRIA,  9th  May,  1863. 
My  dear  Mr.  Bigelow: 

Capt.  Speke,  Englishman,  has  just  discovered  the  sources 
of  the  Nile.  It  comes  from  a  large  lake  which  he  calls  Vic 
toria,  about  five  degrees  North  latitude.  The  question  that 
puzzled  Herodotus,  Strabo  and  Diodorus  Siculus  is  resolved. 
I  am  rather  glad  of  it,  for  my  part. 

The  English  government  has  just  waked  up  to  the  idea  that 
the  Suez  Canal  will  be  finished,  and  Sir  Henry  Bulwer  has 
declared  to  the  Viceroy  that  it  ought  to  be  finished.  The 


AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  COBDEN  639 

only  objection  made  is  to  the  surrender  of  such  large  regions 
on  its  banks  to  French  colonization;  as  foreigners  here  are 
exempt  by  treaties  from  local  jurisdiction.  This  is  establish 
ing  an  imperium  in  imperio,  and  the  objection  does  not  appear 
unreasonable.  Nevertheless  the  wishes  of  Lesseps  are  clearly 
and  sincerely  for  the  success  of  the  canal  as  an  international 
enterprise,  not  as  a  selfish  scheme  of  national  advantage. 

The  new  Viceroy  is  more  comme  il  faut  in  manners  than 
his  predecessors,  though  he  is  a  sharp  financier,  and  won't 
borrow  money  if  he  can't  get  it  at  five  or  six  per  cent.  Yes 
terday  I  received  from  him  a  standing  invitation  to  breakfast 
or  dine  with  him  whenever  I  was  disposed. 

Have  you  seen  John  M.  Forbes  in  London?  I  hope  our 
people  are  not  going  to  get  up  a  war  with  England,  stupid  and 
unfriendly  as  the  latter  is.  What  folly  it  would  be ! 

In  haste, 

As  ever  yours 


BTGELOW  TO  SEWAED 

LONDON,  April  17,  1863. 
My  dear  Sir: 

To  get  a  little  change  of  air  and  to  relieve  my  mind  if  pos 
sible  from  a  good  deal  of  anxiety  about  the  state  of  feeling 
here  in  regard  to  a  war  with  the  United  States,  I  came  over 
to  London  about  a  week  ago.  I  spent  yesterday  afternoon 
and  evening  with  Mr.  Cobden  and  went  with  him  to  the  Com 
mons  to  hear  Gladstone  open  the  budget.  There  were  one  or 
two  features  of  Cobden 's  conversation  which  I  think  will 
interest  you.  I  told  him  the  impression  was  becoming  quite 
general  among  Americans  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  that 
Palmerston  and  the  Times  were  plotting  for  a  war  with  the 
United  States,  or  at  least  were  determined  to  divide  our  na 
tion,  even  at  the  cost  of  a  war  if  necessary.  His  reply  was 
prompt.  He  said  in  substance  that  there  was  never  a  greater 
mistake.  Palmerston  does  not  want  war,  he  wants  to  main 
tain  power  and  he  knows  that  a  war  would  shatter  his  min- 


640        RETROSPECTIONS  OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

istry  to  atoms  in  an  instant.  He  cares  for  nothing  else  but 
office  and  his  talk  means  nothing  else.  The  impression  that 
prevails  in  America  that  Palmerston  is  always  a  war  minister 
is  erroneous ;  on  the  contrary,  said  he,  no  English  statesman 
has  ever  taken  more  humiliating  buffetings  from  foreign 
powers  than  he,  from  France,  from  Eussia,  and  even  from 
the  United  States.  He  then  made  some  remarks  not  very 
complimentary  to  Palmerston 's  character  as  a  politician  and 
added, 1 ' 1  bear  no  rancour  whatever  against  Lord  P.  I  have  a 
horror  of  him  as  a  politician  but  I  could  not  possibly  have  any 
rancour  against  him.  He  has  invited  me  to  a  place  in  his 
cabinet,  he  has  offered  me  a  baronetcy,  and  he  has  asked  me 
to  be  a  privy  councillor.  Of  course  therefore  what  I  say  of 
his  politics  has  not  its  origin  in  any  personal  animosity.  But 
badly  as  I  think  of  him  as  a  politician  I  feel  no  hesitation  in 
assuring  you  and  in  authorizing  you  to  assure  your  friends  in 
America  that  nothing  is  further  from  Lord  P's  intention  or 
wish  than  to  bring  on  a  war  with  America. ' '  In  regard  to  the 
sincerity  of  the  government  in  its  efforts  to  stop  the  equip 
ment  of  Confederate  privateers,  he  (Mr.  C.)  did  not  speak  at 
first  quite  as  decidedly ;  but  he  said  finally,  he  believed  they 
were  doing  everything  they  could  to  stop  them.  He  regretted 
our  government  had  confounded  the  mere  buying  and  selling 
of  arms  and  munitions  of  war  in  open  market,  with  the  equip 
ment  .of  Confederate  privateers :  and  said  that  the  confusion 
had  been  used  with  great  effect  against  us  in  the  last  debate 
when  in  reply  to  the  attack  about  the  Alabama's  ravages  the 
house  was  told  that  in  defiance  of  our  own  usage  and  Presi 
dential  doctrine  as  laid  down  by  Pierce  and  others,  we 
insisted  that  their  manufacturers  and  merchants  should 
ascertain  the  loyalty  of  a  purchaser  before  selling  them  any 
thing.  He  intends  to  speak  next  Friday  on  a  motion  of  which 
Horsf  all  gave  notice  last  night  and  will  then  point  out  the  true 
ground  of  complaint  and  vindicate  it,  from  the  correspon 
dence  and  speeches  of  leading  English  statesmen.  He  pro 
poses  also  to  go  to  the  Board  of  Trade  and  get  a  statement  of 
the  exports  from  Great  Britain  to  the  Island  of  Nassau  by 
which  he  will  show  that  it  is  with  ample  grounds  for  suspicion 
that  vessels  bound  to  that  island  are  examined  by  the  Federal 
cruisers. 

Mr.  Cobden  was  anxious  to  know  if  what  Laird  stated  in 


THE  EARTH  JOHN  BULL'S         641 

the  previous  debate  was  true,  that  we  had  applied  to  him  to 
build  some  vessels  of  war.  I  told  him  that  a  man  was  over 
here  about  a  year  ago  and  .  .  .  that  is,  he  came  to  see  at 
what  rates  they  could  be  furnished  but  no  instructions  to  buy 
being  sent  to  him  he  went  home  and  I  doubted  if  he  had  ever 
been  sent  back.  I  told  him  I  had  not  heard  of  any  other.  No 
doubt  many  persons  came  over  pretending  to  have  some  sort 
of  authority  who  might  have  offered  to  buy  vessels  knowing 
that  any  time  in  the  last  eighteen  months  our  government  was 
ready  to  pay  a  good  price  for  any  vessel  delivered  in  the 
United  States  that  was  capable  of  being  put  into  a  fighting 
condition.  In  regard  to  the  intentions  of  Lord  P.  two  other 
members  of  Parliament,  MofTatt  and  Smith,  who  were  present 
during  this  part  of  our  conversation  and  to  whom  Mr.  Cobden 
appealed,  both  confirmed  what  he  said,  that  nothing  was 
farther  from  England's  or  Lord  P's  wishes  than  a  war 
with  us. 

So  far  as  this  conversation  went  or  any  conversation  with 
these  gentlemen  could  go  it  was  quite  satisfactory,  and  yet  I 
could  not  help  feeling  after  all  that  they  had  really  given  no 
assurance  of  peace.  Many  persons  who  are  indisposed  to 
fight  get  into  brawls  because  they  will  not  govern  their  tem 
pers  nor  make  suitable  concessions  to  preserve  the  peace. 
Lord  P.  does  not  want  war  if  he  can  have  his  own  way  entirely 
in  everything  without  it.  John  Bull  has  come  to  think  that 
any  antagonism  to  his  interests  is  an  act  of  war.  He  does 
not  think  any  other  nation  has  a  right  to  have  a  policy  with 
out  first  ascertaining  that  it  would  harmonize  entirely  with  the 
policy  of  England.  Some  years  or  centuries  ago  they  in 
scribed  over  the  front  porch  of  the  Royal  Exchange  "The 
Earth  is  the  Lord's  and  the  fullness  thereof/'  For  many 
years  every  Englishman  reads  that  inscription  ' '  The  Eartk  is 
John  Bull's  and  the  fullness  thereof."  He  will  stand  any 
thing  but  what  deprives  him  of  the  lion's  share  of  the  fullness. 
He  regards  America  now  as  his  great  competitor  for  the  com 
mercial  and  industrial  supremacy  of  the  world.  Much  as  he 
may  be  indisposed  to  the  expense  of  a  war,  he  has  undertaken 
wars  for  much  less  considerable  pecuniary  inducements  than 
are  now  at  stake  and  where,  as  in  the  Crimean  war,  the  risks 
seemed  far  greater,  Eussia  being  at  the  commencement  re 
garded  as  the  most  formidable  military  power  in  Europe  on 


642        RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

the  defensive  and  the  United  States  being  now  crippled  by  a 
domestic  war  which  binds  both  her  feet  if  not  both  her  hands. 
I  do  not  therefore  feel  at  all  sure  that  the  present  government, 
well  disposed  as  it  may  be  to  prefer  peace,  will  do  what  is  nec 
essary  to  preserve  it.  I  am  glad  to  hear  from  Mr.  Adams 
that  the  foreign  office  shows  a  degree  of  activity  with  which 
he  is  quite  content. 

I  am  surprised  that  no  one  thought  to  collect  the  evidence 
of  J.  Davis'  counsel  in  favor  of  repudiating  the  Miss.  debt. 
Slidell  has  contradicted  the  statement  and  there  is  no  means 
on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  of  proving  it.  I  think  it  will  be 
worth  whatever  trouble  it  may  involve  to  accumulate  all  the 
evidence  and  lay  it  before  the  public  with  as  little  delay  as 
possible.  It  would  have  the  double  effect  of  hitting  Davis 
and  Slidell  who  has  tried  to  whitewash  him. 

I  shall  return  to  Paris  in  a  day  or  two. 

Yours  very  truly 


SEWAED   TO  BTGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  May  9,  1863. 
My  dear  Bigelow: 

I  have  shown  to  the  President  your  interesting  letter  about 
Printing  House  Square.  It  is  not  a  bad  omen  that  reflections 
have  awakened  there. 

Faithfully  yours 


SEWAED   TO   BIGELOW 

WASHINGTON,  May  9,  1863. 
My  dear  Bigelow, 

I  have  your  very  interesting  letter  of  April  25th  at  London. 
We  hope  to  get  along  with  the  instigators  of  hostilities  who 
have  gone  to  Europe  to  break  up  the  peace  of  the  world  so  as 


NO  MORE   CONFEDERATE   SHIPS  OF  WAR      643 

to  secure  success  to  their  unholy  insurrection  at  home.  But 
this  must  be  done  here  without  interfering  with  the  Press.  A, 
contentious  spirit  possesses  it.  To  be  even  supposed  to  con 
fer  with  the  editor  of  one  journal  is  to  draw  down  upon  you 
all  the  others.  And  as  for  consulting  all,  you  know  how  im 
possible  it  is?  We  have  lost  one  new  operation  upon  the 
insurgents  in  Virginia.  But  it  is  not  a  disaster.  The  army 
is  capable  and  the  progress  will  be  resumed. 

Faithfully  yours 


COBDEN    TO   BIGELOW 

MIDHURST,  22  May,  1863. 
My  dear  Sir: 

I  am  here  for  a  week's  Whitsun-holidays,  and  seize  the  first 
moment  to  thank  you  for  your  letter  and  the  Opinion  Natio- 
nale  which  duly  reached  me.— I  have  also  to  thank  you  for  the 
excellent  volume  in  French  which  came  to  hand.— 

I  need  hardly  say  how  much  I  agree  with  you  in  all  you  say 
respecting  a  cheap  international  postage.— But  the  time  is  not 
yet,  though  it  will  come.  We  are  apt  in  our  generation  to  be 
imbued  with  the  spirit  of  monopoly,  and  to  forget  that  we 
must  leave  some  good  work  for  our  children  to  accomplish.— 

Public  opinion  in  England  is  regaining  its  equilibrium 
again  on  the  subject  of  our  relations  with  your  country.  It 
was  very  hard  indeed  for  John  Bull  to  reconcile  himself  as  a 
neutral  to  the  treatment  which  he  had  been  used  to  show  to 
others  when  he  was  the  belligerent.  But  gradually  he  is  be 
coming  reconciled  to  his  fate.  As  respects  the  furnishing  of 
cruisers  to  prey  on  your  commerce,  no  more  ships  of  war  will 
be  allowed  to  leave  our  ports  for  the  Confederate  govern 
ment.  Of  that  you  may  be  assured.  I  wish  we  could  as  easily 
remedy  the  mischief  already  done. — 

Mr.  Evarts,  who  is  here  representing  your  government  on 
questions  of  international  law  is  "the  right  man  in  the  right 
place."  He  is  a  sedate,  quiet,  able  man,  thoroughly  master 
of  his  business,  and  not  disposed  to  go  much  beyond  it.  He  is 


644        RETROSPECTIONS   OF  AN  ACTIVE  LIFE 

quite  a  match  for  our  lawyers  on  his  special  questions.  He  is 
mixing,  very  freely,  in  a  social  way,  in  our  best  society,  and 
seems  pleased  with  his  reception.  Everybody  speaks  of  him 
with  great  respect.  I  wish  he  had  had  the  writing  of  every 
dispatch  on  the  subject  of  maritime  law  from  the  beginning.— 
Matters  would  have  stood  far  better  between  the  two  coun 
tries.—1 

I  shall  be  always  glad  to  hear  from  you.— 

My  wife  joins  me  in  kind  regards  to  Mrs.  Bigelow,  and  be 
lieve  me, 

Yours  truly 


BIGELOW  TO  E.  D.  MOEGAN 

May  22d,  1863. 
My  dear  Governor: 

I  know  you  are  anxious  to  render  me  a  service.  Having 
nothing  worth  speaking  of  to  do  for  yourself,  you  are  no 
doubt  yearning  to  hear  of  something  to  do  for  a  friend.  Well, 
here  it  is.  I  have  been  elected  a  member  of  the  Geographical 
Society  of  France.  It  puts  me  in  relation  with  an  influential 
class  of  men  (Persigny  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  is  Presi 
dent)  whom  I  wish  in  behalf  of  our  govt.  to  propitiate.  Noth 
ing  would  go  so  far  as  some  new  thing  in  the  geographical 
way.  Now  I  am  sure  there  must  be  a  large  number  of  military 
and  naval  charts  prepared  during  this  war  for  the  War  & 
Navy  departments  which  could  be  spared  now  as  well  as  not 
and  which  would  be  valued  very  highly.  Any  sketches  of  the 
Surface,  especially  in  Virginia  &  Louisiana,  not  laid  down  on 
other  maps,  made  by  military  men  for  military  purposes,  no 
matter  how  roughly,  would  be  acceptable,  especially  if  accom 
panied  with  such  explanations  as  usually  add  to  the  value  of 
all  maps.  Any  topographical  reports  and  surveys  of  recent 
date,  that  is,  since  the  commencement  of  the  war,  would  also 
hit  my  case  exactly.  I  do  not  like  to  trouble  Mr.  Seward  nor 

1  The  matters  might  have  stood  better  between  the  two  countries,  but  would 
they  have  stood  as  well  for  the  United  States? 


MILITARY  AND  NAVAL  CHARTS  645 

the  Secretary  of  War  or  the  Navy  with  a  request  of  this 
kind,  for  it  is  not  strictly  an  official  request  and  therefore  if 
it  were  not  attended  to  I  should  feel  the  neglect  more  acutely 
than  if  I  experienced  it  at  the  hands  of  another,  and  especially 
of  one  whose  good  disposition  towards  me  I  know  too  well  to 
doubt,  whatever  he  might  do  or  leave  undone  with  such  an 
application.  When  you  are  in  Washington  you  will  naturally 
have  occasion  to  go  to  the  departments  and  a  word  or  two  from 
you  will  be  sufficient  to  ascertain  whether  there  is  anything  of 
the  kind  to  be  found  there  for  me  or  not.  I  would  be  glad  to 
have  duplicates  of  such  as  are  convenient  to  give  to  the  Biblio- 
theque  of  the  Department  of  Marine,  which  is  disposed  to 
reciprocate  such  civilities  with  our  Navy  Department.  I  think 
if  Mr.  Welles  would  send  me  some  things  of  that  sort  to  pre 
sent  to  the  library  I  could  make  it  serve  the  Department  a 
good  turn. 

We  just  have  the  news  that  Heintzelman  has  been  ordered 
to  reinforce  Hooker  and  we  begin  to  hope  for  a  grand  victory 
—alas  that  mirage  that  has  too  often  awakened  hopes  only  to 
disappoint  them.  We  are  all  well.  Remember  us  all  af 
fectionately  to  Mrs.  Morgan. 

Yours  very  truly  &.  in  haste 


Any  thing  you  may  wish  to  send  may  if  too  bulky  for  the 
dispatch  bag  be  forwarded  by  express  at  my  expense. 

Yrs.  truly 


